BACK ROW BLUES COULD SPELL THE END FOR O’BRIEN
...EVEN IF HIS SCORE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME
5 For the fifth time in succession, the Lions lost the first Test of a series in New Zealand
WARREN GATLAND has been told where he needs to go for salvation. Fifteen points behind New Zealand, utterly outplayed for long stretches of the match, Gatland has been advised to go for broke.
His problem is that the Lions are there already.
They pitched everything at the All Blacks in Auckland yesterday and there is practically no room for radical shifts in emphasis before the second Test in Wellington next Saturday.
Change was being demanded long before the end of this defeat, but most of Gatland’s selection calls were justified. Liam Williams made a terrible mistake for Rieko Ioane’s second try, but the marvellous Seán O’Brien score was mostly down to the full back.
Elliot Daly brought attacking impetus in the first half in particular, and Peter O’Mahony worked like a Trojan in defence while excelling in the lineout.
The one misfire was Alun Wyn Jones, who looked spent inside the first quarter. Maro Itoje will start in the second row in six days’ time.
Demands will be made for the inclusion of Sam Warburton as well, but there was no improvement in the tourists’ game when he replaced O’Mahony.
The danger for the latter, though, is that he is washed away in the panic after such a resounding loss. As the captain for the game, he is instantly under more focus anyway, and the popular, cheery Warburton has plenty of supporters who will spend the coming days agitating for his inclusion.
Given that Gatland made him his tour captain, the coach will be minded to start Warburton, but if he does so it should not be at the expense of O’Mahony. The lineout was the only area of the game where the Lions competed with consistent, aggressive success, losing just one on their own throw and stealing four New Zealand balls (the loss coming after O’Mahony had been replaced).
That statistic will not be improved by the absence of O’Mahony, and if Gatland is intent on justifying his faith in Warburton, it should come at the cost of the selection of Taulupe Faletau. He offered little in the way of momentum, and switching Seán O’Brien to No8 and picking Warburton at openside flanker is one solution.
Other than that, making changes would be largely for the sake of it. Ben Te’o was, as predicted, figured out quickly by New Zealand but he nonetheless carried the ball and ground out yards. When Johnny Sexton came on and Owen Farrell replaced Te’o in the centre, it made no difference. By then, these Lions were couchant rather than rampant. One daring call was made by Stephen Ferris in his role as a TV analyst. Ferris has been very good discussing this tour, continuing on Sky Sports the willingness for candour that marked his work on Ulster for BBC Northern Ireland.
He said Rory Best should start at hooker, arguing his scrum strength and excellence at the breakdown are sorely needed. Ferris is right, but that switch would carry with it the risk of lineout malfunction. It is an issue that has stalked Best in the past and it would require an enormous investment in trust on the part of the coaches to back him.
What is undoubtedly true, though, is that the Lions were destroyed at the breakdown in Eden Park, and that has to bring another Irishman into focus. For all the wonder of the try he finished, and for all he bullocks out ground against defences, O’Brien is not a specialist in this part of the game.
Sam Cane is, and he was the most important player on the pitch as a result. If the Lions are to have even an outsider’s chance in Wellington, they have to address that.
Warburton’s champions will say he is the man for it, but the only player with comparable skills to Cane in the Lions party – that amalgam of timing, speed and aggression needed to squirrel the ball out of rucks – is Justin Tipuric. Mystifyingly, despite illustrating his effectiveness in some of the warm-up matches, he never seemed to have a chance of featuring in the 23 for the first Test. He must be on the bench at the very least for Wellington, but that will spell bad news for at least one of the Irishmen in the back row. Given O’Mahony’s lineout skills and his leadership, he should not be ditched but O’Brien could be vulnerable. That there is still a reason for speculation may be attributable to nothing more than hopeless optimism. Such a view is certainly the governing one among New Zealand supporters and they are probably justified in their arrogance. At half time, a thrilling Test match was being savoured but that impression was fostered by Williams’ break and O’Brien’s try. For