Watson tipped to start Test
Josh Adams and Duhan van der Merwe might be scoring tries for fun for the Lions, but former England skipper Lewis Moody still believes that Anthony Watson will make the Test team when all is said and done.
With eight tries in three matches, Adams has scored at a rate not seen since 1936, while Van der Merwe has notched five, in addition to being the top try-scorer in the Six Nations.
Watson joined the party in Saturday’s win over the Sharks, helping himself to a double.
And four years after Watson started all three Tests in the drawn series against the All Blacks, Moody believes he will crack the Test side once again, irrespective of the scoring prowess of some of his backthree rivals.
Moody explained: “I get the feeling that Gatland really likes Anthony Watson.
“I love his style of play and when he plays, invariably he plays well in every game. You’d struggle to watch a game that he’s played in and say he has had a bad game.
“He’s either playing really well, or playing OK, he never has a bad day at the office. His consistency, I think, stands him in good stead.
“He’s such a tenacious player. He’s got that sort of Jack Nowell tenacity, where he wants to go looking for the rugby ball and get involved in the game but he’s also got balance, poise, lovely hands, he reads the game well in defence.
“He works, in terms of being professional, he works really hard, he sets good standards, not saying that the others don’t.
“For me, he’s well-liked by Gatland so it’s whether he can do enough to prove that he deserves a start.” The Lions have racked up a half-century of points in all three matches on South African soil, including back-to-back wins over the Sharks.
The second of those was a little closer than the first, with the sides level at 26-26 until Jaden Hendrikse’s red card early in the second half.
The Lions eventually ran out 71-31 winners and Moody, who was part of the Lions tour to New Zealand in 2005, admits it will be a worry for Gatland that his team might come into the Test series a little cold.
He added: “It’s a bit frustrating with the games that they are playing because they are so one-sided and you worry about how well-prepared they will be for the Tests.
“We had exactly the same in 05, a lot of the midweek games were fairly one-sided so when it came to the Test matches, you hadn’t been tested that well.
“We ended up getting pumped in every single game.
“I’m pretty confident that won’t happen to this cohort because they have got some really talented players and Gats does a really good job of building a strong squad and team culture which we were missing in 05.”
Moody is helping to connect rugby fans across the country with the British & Irish Lions, with Land Rover having launched a nationwide rugby themed treasure hunt.
Over 900 UK locations have been tagged with a digital Lion, with rugby fans encouraged to visit lionsadventure.com/ to find their nearest tagged location.
To enter the competition, all fans need to do is visit the tagged location, find the digital Lion, and tap them via the Lions Adventure site on their phone.
In doing so, fans will be in with a chance of winning exclusive prizes including signed Lion’s merchandise and an exclusive screening of the second Lions Test match on July 31.
Join Land Rover on its Lions Adventure and be in with a chance to win exclusive prizes. Visit lionsadventure.com/ and follow @Landroverrugby on Twitter.