Lions can cut All Blacks warp speed down to slow motion
This is how the Lions can beat the All Blacks next week
“The Lions know the best way to mess with the All Blacks is keep the ball tight and grind them down”
THE Lions know what is coming at Eden Park. It’s called warp-speed rugby, and New Zealand will use it in an attempt to run the Lions ragged, counter-attacking and off-loading from all points of the compass.
Steve Hansen will want the rapidfire game the double world champions have honed to the finest of points to leave the big beasts in the Lions pack wheezing, and ready to be picked off at will. New Zealand used that template against Samoa on Friday night at Eden Park, and after a combative first 25 minutes it turned into a semi-opposed 12-try procession.
At the same time, the All Black coach will back his forwards to do a far better job of disrupting the Lions pack than the Maori All Blacks were able to do in Rotorua. In fact, he will want them to dominate so that gifted strike runners like Beauden Barrett get to feast on quick ball set up by unstoppable forward momentum, while at the same time the ground is cut from under the feet of the Lions,
It is that overall forward contest, and the one-on-one battles within it, that will dictate whether the Lions can become not only the first touring side to put a dent in New Zealand since 1971, but also upset the world order by winning the series.
They have a chance. The genesis of it is that there is no side in the world more overconfident than New Zealand, fuelled as they are by support in the media and public which breaks all records for arrogance. There is a widespread belief that New Zealand’s high-tempo way is the only way to play the game, and that if you do not you are living in the dark ages.
This sets up the series nicely as a clash between not just hemispheres, but rugby philosophies – with the British & Irish holding fast to the idea that there is more than one way to play the game. For them a try scored from a brilliantly executed driving maul is worth every bit as much as a kick-chase effort such as the one touched down by Liam Messam for the Maori. The Lions know that the best way to mess with the All Blacks is keep the ball tight and grind them down, denying them quick front-foot ball. There are signs that they are building a pack capable of doing so given the right amount of time to prepare – but the Lions never get that time, and it is in even shorter supply on this tour. Even so, while the New Zealand pack is good, and very well drilled, I am yet to be convinced that the individuals in that eight are better than the men in red who will be coming at them. Plaudits have rained down on them, and justifiably so for what they have achieved, but they are far from unassailable, as a comparison between the two packs highlights. Joe Moody is not the most experienced international loose-head, and not close to being as industrious or influential in the loose as Mako Vunipola. At hooker Codie Taylor is back-up to the concussion-hit virtuoso Dane Coles, and sound rather than exceptional. His likely opposite number, Jamie George, has footballing nous about him as well as a good set-piece game, so it’s again advantage Lions.
Tight-head is more difficult to call because Owen Franks has been there and got the badge, and is justifiably ensconced as the best tight-head in the world. However, this could be a case of the young bull, Tadgh Furlong, supplanting the old bull, especially as there were signs in the Lions game against the Crusaders that Franks does not have the mobility he did.
Second row is another close call because Brodie Rettallick and Sam Whitelock have earned their ranking as the best pairing in the business, but again Whitelock is clocking up the mileage. One thing for certain is that whichever combination Warren Gatland goes for will not be in awe. George Kruis and Maro Itoje left their mark on the Maori with some supercharged stuff at the set-piece and in the loose, and with Alun Wyn Jones also in the mix the Lions look capable of meeting them head-on.
This will involve dragging Retallick into defending driving mauls like those the Lions employed against the Maori and Crusaders rather than taking station as a second play-maker in midfield.
The potency of the All Black backrow hinges a great deal on whether
captain Kiern Read is fit for action in the first Test, because a combinae tion of Jerome Kaino, Sam Kane and Ardie Saveas Read’s successor at No.8 does not have the perfect balep ance.
Kaino is deep in veteran territory, Kane is abraive but does not have Richie McCaw’s big picture vision, and Ardie Savea is fast and furious but not a natural No.8. This was highlighted when Savea knocked on blatantly at the scrum base against Samoa, and scored only because it went undeteted by the match offitrio cials.
The Lionstrio which takes them on will almost certainly include Taulupe Faletau at No .8, with the Welshng Tongan getting better with every game since being branded as a pasw senger by New Zealand’s legendary No.8 Zinzan Brooke.
The blindside shirt could be filled by Peter O’Mahony, or even Sam Warails burton if he tails to oust the
increasingly influential Sean O’Brien from openside. Another option would have been to follow England’s lead of putting Itoje at blindside to give Kaino a bigger and more lithe version of himself to contend with. However, Itoje put that idea to bed when he told me earlier this week that he had not trained at all at No.6 with the Lions.
Irrespective of the positional permutations, O’Brien summed up his refusal to buy into the myth of the New Zealand forwards being blessed with superpowers when he said: “I don’t see any aura that makes them unbeatable – Ireland have beaten them, and England have beaten them.”
To beat New Zealand again in the red of the Lions this pack will have to unleash controlled mayhem. The march against Maori was useful preparation, especially as Lions assistant coach Steve Borthwick said that their line-out mirrored the All Blacks because it contained five jumpers whose speed over the ground and into the air was exceptional. Nevertheless, the Lions won all 11 of their throws.
The tourists also won all 12 of their scrums against the Maori, and if they can combine similar set-piece excellence with the line-speed they showed against the Crusaders, they know just where to look for a template of how to shut down Barrett, Ben Smith, Sonny Bill Williams and company.
The Lions should have a specific plan for Sonny Bill, who you sense is riding his luck. He looked like a statue when Samoa’s Tim Nanai-Williams cut past him to open up the New Zealand midfield on Friday night, and it suggests that while his backhand offloads might create opportunities for the All Blacks, his place in their starting line-up does the same for the Lions.
This applies especially to Ben Te’o, his old Rugby League adversary, who has just the physicality required to shake him up.
As for Barrett, a few weeks ago the Crusaders employed lock-down tactics to beat the Hurricanes, snuffing out the threat posed by the All Black fly-half and his full-back brother Jordie by playing a set-piece pressure game aimed at dominating possession and territory. They kept the Hurricanes on the back foot, turning them with astute tactical kicking and hounds of hell chasing.
It was a tutorial into how to turn warp-speed into slow motion, and it will not have been lost on Lions head coach Warren Gatland.
“I don’t see any aura that makes them unbeatable Ireland have beaten them, and England have”