BRITISH & IRISH LIONS 2017 ATRY TO R A DEFEAT T
Lions claim epic touchdown.. but are humbled and rumbled
SO much for taking the All Blacks to the hurt arena. So much for the Lions’ pack being the best in the world.
When the trash talk stopped at Eden Park yesterday, Warren Gatland’s players did manage to score the try of the century.
A length-of-the-field move, reminiscent of the Barbarians’ epic score against the same opposition in 1973, which All Blacks boss Steve Hansen hailed as “one of the best Test tries I have ever seen, one of the best in the annals of Test rugby”.
But for all its brilliance it provided little consolation as New Zealand ran out easy winners to take a stranglehold on the best-of-three series. Beaten more comprehensively than the scoreline suggests, the Lions need now to win both remaining games to repeat their series triumph in Australia four years ago.
Lesson
Only once in the last 100 years have they managed that – and it was not against this mighty rugby nation.
Outclassed, outmuscled, utmuscled, outsmarted, the tourists were givenen a lesson in finishing by the Kiwis’ second-choice hoice hooker Codie Taylor, picking a pass off ff his boot laces to brilliantly score the opening try.
Also by kid dynamite Rieko Ioane, a 20-year-old old marking his first start for his country with two tries clinicallyy finished after the break. k. Boss Gatland admitted: d: “We need to be much uch more physical nextext week. There’s sevveral areas we need to be better at. We need to be t ough on ourselves and honest i n ourr performance.
“But a lot of those hose things are fixable. e. The All Blacks were re very physical up front, t, but it’s not as though they have played champagne ne rugby and thrown the ball all over the place.” It was thee Lions who produced the fizz, with full-back Liam Williams vindicating Gatland’s decision to pick him with a moment of magic.
With the Lions 10 points adrift, the Welshman received the ball in a desperate defensive position under his own posts. Under pressure to clear his lines he instead bobbed and weaved past two All Blacks and worked his way up to halfway before offloading to Jonathan Davies, who combined with Elliot Daly to put Sean O’Brien over.
“When they can score tries like that you’re thinking they should probably do that more often,” Hansen observed dryly.
The Lions could not. Not yesterday at least. They succeeded only in shooting themselves in the foot. Taylor scored after Daly dropped his guard and allowed New Zealand to take a quick tap and go. Their much-vaunted scrum got it all wrong when allowing the hosts to get the shove on and man of the match Kieran Read to make the first of Ioane’s two tries with a quite sublime pass off the floor.
And Williams spoiled his earlier sparkling work by failing to field a high ball, enabling Ioane to pounce to regather and outpace Daly to the try line. A latel reply by Rhys Webb was scant co consolation for the Lions. “This w was the biggest game of my life b but there were ups and downs,” s said full-back Williams.
Optimistic
“We’l “We’ll dust ourselves down and co come back. Of course we’re still optimistic, of course we ca can come back.” T The Lions today fly to We Wellington where they mu must use Tuesday’s game ag against the Hurricanes to both patch up their set-e piece and clean up their act. Tour captain Sam Warburton (left) will be looking to start Saturday’s second Test after failing to stem the All Black tide after comin coming on as a replacement. “We still believebeli we are capable of winning the nextnex game and getting what we want out of thist tour,” insisted fellow Wales star TaulupeTaul Faletau. Well he has t to say that, doesn’t he.