Out-of-form North faces anxious wait
WARREN GATLAND faces the toughest selection meeting of his career today when he sits down to pick his Lions team to face the All Blacks. The coach could make his biggest call since dropping Brian O’Driscoll in 2013 — with wings Elliot Daly, Liam Williams and Jack Nowell making a late charge to start ahead of George North. With Sam Warburton’s place in doubt, there is also a final decision to be made over the captaincy but Gatland welcomed the headache after yesterday’s 34-6 Lions victory against the Chiefs. He said: ‘Guys have
The task facing the British and Irish Lions in Auckland this week is as good as encapsulated in the tale of two captains. Not that Peter O’Mahony isn’t both a strong leader and a fine player; more that his path to his present position sums up the random nature of the Lions, of bringing together a scratch team in a matter of weeks and presuming to challenge the best in the world.
A knee injury had kept O’Mahony out for almost a year after the 2015 World Cup and he had lost his place in the Ireland team to CJ Stander. Then, before the final Six Nations game of 2017 against england, Jamie heaslip was injured in the warm-up.
O’Mahony was a battlefield promotion from the bench and excelled to the extent he was included in Warren Gatland’s Lions squad.
Now crisis has elevated him again — considered the outstanding captaincy candidate after leading the Lions against the Maori All Blacks, with Sam Warburton’s fitness still a worry.
Compare this haphazard path to the gentleman in the black corner. There sits Kieran Read, passed fit to make his 98th All Black appearance on Saturday.
The natural successor to Richie McCaw, he first captained the team five years ago. Read made his All Black debut in 2008 and has been a fixture at No 8 since 2009.
This is what the Lions are up against. Permanence. Familiarity. Security of tenure. Given his year, and for all his talent, O’Mahony’s path from Ireland’s replacements to the pinnacle of British and Irish rugby still affords surprise.
There is nothing Steve hansen can pull out for Saturday’s game that can shock; nothing he would want to, really.
The sense here is that it is for Gatland to find strategies and rabbits from hats. If the All Blacks play their game, the locals feel, they win. From the Lions perspective, the best that can be hoped for is over-confidence.
even then, there is much for Read’s All Blacks to be confident about. They have not lost at Auckland’s eden Park since July 3, 1994, when the current captain was still attending Opaheke Primary School in Papakura, one of the city’s suburbs.
Nor will he have too many recollections of the last Lions tour to these parts, having been in Argentina at the 2005 Under 21 Rugby World Championship. Anyway, by the time that series got to Auckland it was long over.
Read had his first full contact training session yesterday, having fractured a thumb in April, but there was never any intimation that he wouldn’t play.
‘even though he hasn’t been out there on the field, he’s still been driving things,’ said All Blacks and Crusaders team-mate Sam Whitelock. ‘hopefully, he’ll now get straight into his way of playing, leading from the front, because it’s awesome when he does that, when he just takes the lead. ‘he’s had time to get his head round being right for this game, he’s been working with the trainers and this was always his target.’ Sam Cane echoed: ‘ The thing with Kieran is, the difference between his best game and his good game is barely anything at all.’ Much the same could be said of the All Blacks.
Whatever optimism in last night’s win over the Chiefs in hamilton, this remains a colossal test for the Lions and their captain. ‘If the four horsemen of the apocalypse came around the corner, Peter O’Mahony would charge at them,’ Will Greenwood once marvelled. On Saturday, we may yet discover the accuracy of that statement.