Despair is not an option
Liam Williams’ magnificent dash offers some comfort to keep the series alive
At least the Lions have a beautiful memory to take south to Wellington: a first-half try inspired by a sidestepping Welsh full-back, an end-to-end score of All Black quality. One photo album touchdown will not keep this series alive, but it showed the tourists to be capable of thrilling crowds who expected them to aim no higher than set-piece supremacy and ferocious defending.
For one half here, one of the great Lions tries fired the imaginations of the red swarm who followed them to this land of skills and menace. Under slate skies and showers, they rose in their replica coats to applaud a burst of British and Irish spontaneity. Back home, bacon sandwiches probably went up in the air as a sweeping move, started by Liam Williams, prompted comparisons with some of the finest tries of the 1970s.
Williams, though, was ultimately not going to be allowed his day of glory. Spilling a straightforward box kick 69 minutes into a game that extended New Zealand’s 23-year unbeaten record at Eden Park, Williams allowed Rieko Ioane to run in his second try and stretch the lead from respectable to worrying – a gap made marginally less painful by Rhys Webb’s late score.
“This was the biggest game of my life and an absolute honour just to be out there on the pitch with the boys, but there’s ups and downs,” Williams said. “We switch off for a second and we turn around and they’re under the sticks.”
Steve Hansen, the All Black coach, was among the admirers of the Lions’ first-half flourish. “When they can score tries like that first one, you sit there thinking they should be doing things like that more often,” Hansen said. “Because it was one of the best Test tries I’ve ever seen.”
On the wrong end of a 30-15 result, you need signs that things can change, memories to cling to. And though Sean O’Brien’s try from a stunning counterattack is stranded in a mass of discouraging evidence, it lent fresh life to the idea of the Lions as a credible force in this most testing environment. It was a score that looked the All Blacks right in the eye and matched them for speed and audacity.
It began with a routine pass from Anthony Watson to Williams, who bamboozled Kieran Read with a sidestep that evoked Phil Bennett, the Welsh master of the jink-and-go. From there Williams ran laterally, as if assailed by doubt, or perhaps looking to deceive the All Black defenders again.
Yet soon he was through the cordon, vindicating Warren Gatland’s decision to pick him at full-back ahead of Leigh Halfpenny.
This counter-strike, exciting enough by itself, would have been recorded as a bit of midfield fun had Elliot Daly and Jonathan Davies not offered such good support. O’Brien, too. When Davies needed to offload five yards from the All Black line, the Irish flanker gathered safely and changed his line of attack to drive over. The clouds lifted. The Lions were back in business. Anything these ball-hugging All Blacks could do, the Lions could do, too.
“I love playing 15, and I love having the ball in hand and I love having a run,” Williams said. “There are times when you have to stick it long or go up in the air. It was on, and I had a go and at the end of that move we’d scored in the corner. I looked up, I saw a bit of space and I just stuck my head down.”
Williams’s promotion was the clearest sign that Gatland had been emboldened by wins against the Maoris and Chiefs. The Lions eased away from Plan A, which was all about suffocation, box kicks, scrums and line-outs and rush defence.
Instead they would pick a team who could play some rugby when the chance arose. With Owen Farrell and Elliot Daly already picked, Gatland could add some thrust and enterprise at full-back, even though he has favoured Halfpenny in that position with Wales.
Encouraged by the vote of confidence, Williams set out to cause mayhem in the All Black ranks. More than once, he turned the clock back to the best Welsh contributions to Lions rugby. A second blistering run came to nothing. “It was close, I went on the outside, Ant [Watson] came back underneath me, and I’ve literally just handed him the ball,” Williams said.
“He’s class, you know, he’s got great feet, he’s got great speed, and I thought I would just give him a go. It was close, but actually just didn’t get over the line.”
How cruel that such a wonderful try should be cancelled out by a simple failure to catch a ball. “If he was assessing it himself he would say it was mixed,” Gatland said. “You’ve just got to make sure it’s 100 per cent accurate. Those are the type of things we can rectify next time.”
There is plenty to rectify: an inability to control the pace of the game, set-piece wobbles, indiscipline and losses of concentration when New Zealand were attacking. Perhaps ominously, Hansen said: “I thought the score in the end made it look easy – but it wasn’t easy. I thought the Lions played magnificently at times.” It is never a good sign when the All Blacks are kind to their victims.
For comfort, watch the O’Brien try on repeat for a week until the second Test in Wellington. Seek solace in art. Tell yourself this was the true face of the 2017 Lions touring party – and that there is plenty more where that came from. Despair is not an option.
‘How cruel that such a wonderful try was cancelled out by a failure to gather a dropping ball’