Gatland had to take a risk, only a clown would play this safe
AT the end of a week in which he has been sent up as Bozo the Coach, Warren Gatland had to give the people something to smile about. It came with the announcement of his second Test team of the tour.
Whatever happens in Wellington on Saturday, the British and Irish Lions have come to play. Johnny Sexton at fly half with Owen Farrell at centre. Maro Itoje in, as he should have been all along. It is going to be called Gatland’s great gamble — but after 11 straight defeats in Test matches with New Zealand, what else could he do?
Gatland is unlikely to be on a list of contenders to succeed Steve Hansen any time soon — in all probability the crown will be handed down to his assistant Ian Foster — but from a personal point of view as much as any career ambitions, his record against his native country is an embarrassment.
Never forgetting that the All Blacks are the supreme team of this era and that most opponents come a cropper, particularly down here, Gatland would have wanted to show on this tour that he had a greater understanding of what makes them tick.
When Ireland defeated the All Blacks in Chicago last year it marked their coach Joe Schmidt out as someone who really knew what they were about. Winning is not just what you do; it is what you know of them, too.
And while Gatland continues to coach defeat against the All Blacks, the perception will be that he doesn’t really get it. He doesn’t really get them. That was why the country was so taken with the Lions’ first try in Auckland. It was a move so audacious and exciting that it could have been scored by the men in black.
New Zealand were expecting Warrenball. This showed Gatland could deliver more than variations on a pragmatic theme.
The reason Alex Ferguson made Steve McClaren his assistant manager at Manchester United in 1999 was a session he saw him put on at a coaches seminar some years earlier.
McClaren was assistant to Jim Smith at Derby at the time and the session involved setting up and preparing a team — an inferior team, obviously — to play Manchester United. It must have been very intimidating for McClaren to have such an informed source in his audience, but he went ahead anyway. Ferguson was hugely impressed. He thought McClaren’s work showed real knowledge of what Manchester United did.
This is what Gatland’s Lions have to demonstrate on Saturday. An understanding of the greatest team in rugby and how to match them, tactically as much as technically.
We all get that, man on man, the All Blacks are superior. But if the best team always won, there would be no fans and certainly no bookmakers.
So, yes, Gatland has taken a risk — as he did when leaving out Brian O’Driscoll for the crucial deciding Test of the 2013 Lions tour to Australia.
Yet his calls are not cavalier. This isn’t a soft team. Returning captain Sam Warburton is there to play havoc with All Black possession, to slow the ball down and disrupt the fluidity of the hosts.
Itoje is a rampage of a player, whose momentum on this tour should have seen him in from the start. Despite the score getting away from them, the Lions looked better in Auckland when he replaced Alun-Wyn Jones, although the Welshman — a Gatland stalwart — has retained his place. Yet with Sexton at 10 and Farrell at 12 and no Ben Te’o, who did as good a job as any man against Sonny Bill Williams last week, the fear will be that the All Blacks might just steamroller the tourists, combining physical might with the most fearless skills, ball in hand.
That, more than anything, is Gatland’s gamble. Yet Farrell is no pussycat and with his switch, Gatland clearly hopes to increase his options in attack, while sacrificing little in defence.
This is a huge responsibility for the Englishman. For this plan to work, Farrell will need one of the performances of his career.
So, too, Sexton whose form for Leinster at the end of last season, carrying into this tour, was inconsistent. Without doubt, Gatland initially saw Sexton and Farrell as either-or at fly half. Yet events in Auckland changed that.
If Gatland’s fruitless run against the All Blacks extends to 12 Tests on Saturday, the tour is over as a contest and with it his credibility in his homeland. Victories in the northern hemisphere do little to impress down here.
Gatland needs to give them something to talk about back home in Waikato. It is a high risk strategy, but he is fast running out of options. If the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, not to shake it up after 11 straight losses would be the real clown move.
Martin Samuel