Kiwis quick to lay into tourists
IT was a wretched Saturday night for Warren Gatland’s British and Irish Lions even if their laboured 13-7 win over the New Zealand Provincial Barbarians was blamed on jet-lag having only arrived in the land of the long white cloud on Wednesday.
While the British media have been generally supportive of the Whangarei opener for Gatland, the same can’t be said in his native New Zealand with words like ‘pathetic’ and the ‘Lions showing all the enthusiasm of the chicken visiting KFC’ summing up the display at Toll Stadium. We give you the pick of the Lions reports .... CHRIS RATTUE (NEW ZEALAND HERALD) One game in, and supporters of the British and Irish and New Zealand Lions will already be wondering if they’ve got the right coach. Methinks not.
The opening performance from this multi-national force in Whangarei – against a mob of no-names who’d been flung together as patsies – was aimless and dispirited. And those were the good bits. Coach Warren Gatland is already under immense pressure, his team of alleged superstars firing a series of shots at their own collective foot in an embarrassingly narrow win over the Barbarians. Even the Lions scrum went nowhere.
What the heck were the Lions up to? Whangarei hasn’t seen so many workers lay down their tools since the refinery expansion strikes over 30 years ago.
Scotland – whose contribution to this party is a couple of popped balloons – would have played better than that. The best team lost at Toll Stadium, or Okara Park as those with any Northland affiliations would love to call it.
The Barbarians looked deeply disappointed at the end, knowing they had chucked away the chance for an amazing reunion in 20 years’ time. They had come oh so close to toppling a Lions team which had revealed all the enthusiasm you’d expect out of a chicken heading towards KFC.
Gatland never struck me as the right man for this assignment. He’s a journeyman Test coach, a decent one, but this is a job for someone with a touch of magic. There is nothing special about Warren Gatland.
All the doubts I had over Gatland came flooding into view from the moment the Lions forwards let the opening kick-off sail over their heads. No-one even jumped. They relied on a few big bodies lumbering up field, Ben Te’o and Kyle Sinckler in particular. Yes, veteran lock Alun Wyn Jones found a touch of mongrel, eventually. And there was something about replacement Owen Farrell which promised something.
At full-back, Stuart Hogg made you wonder why there were so few Scots picked in the squad, that’s when he wasn’t making you wonder if Gatland had picked one Scot too many.
But where was the Lions’ attitude, the fight, the desperation? And where – you also felt inclined to ask – was Bad Boy Dylan Hartley? Get him over here. Quick. RICHARD LOE (NEW ZEALAND HERALD) That was pathetic. What if that team had played the Highlanders, Crusaders, Chiefs or Hurricanes? Even if the Blues played as appallingly as they did in Samoa against the Reds, they’d give them a run for their money. There will be apologists, but that was horrible and they’d better get their act together.
Let’s start the analysis from up front. They had two huge front rowers (Joe Marler and Kyle Sinckler) who were off-the-ball slugs, an old Irish hooker (Rory Best) who didn’t do much, and a couple of locks (Alun Wyn Jones and Iain Henderson) that didn’t get up to have a crack at the Baa-Baas ball on the opposition throw.
Ross Moriarty and Taulupe Faletau looked reasonably good in the loose. If half-back (Greig Laidlaw) and full-back (Stuart Hogg) are the best Scottish rugby players, no wonder no others got picked. Ben Te’o showed the most promise in the backs.
As a team they were so slow at recovering the ball and showed no imagination, especially given they’ve trained together for a few weeks. I watched captain Sam Warburton try to say it gave them a good hit out, but when you get on a plane and come over this way business class, you can’t use jet-lag as an excuse with all those management to look after you. JUSTIN MARSHALL (NEW ZEALAND HERALD) The first game of a Lions tour is always going to be heavily scrutinised and clearly there has been a lot of criticism of the team’s performance in Whangarei but in my view, there’s no need for alarm. The Provincial Barbarians put on a courageous performance and did New Zealand proud.
The Lions were probably caught in a slightly-fragile mindset because they were up against a team no-one knew a great deal about and they were told they should win comfortably.
They had some great opportunities to show some attacking prowess and they were pretty basic and ordinary in that regard. From attacking scrums and lineouts, they went direct, with no subtlety, variation or creativity.
That is an awareness that they will be super analysed on this tour. They will make no bones about the fact they want to stay unbeaten, but as skipper Sam Warburton has said, they will take the occasional loss for a Test series win.