Hansen: Bulk of squad should have flown down here last week
New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen has criticised the British and Irish Lions’ schedule, saying the majority of the touring party should have flown out last week.
Warren Gatland’s 41-man squad left Heathrow yesterday and will land in Auckland on tomorrow, just three days before they play a Provincial Barbarians XV in the first match of their 10-game tour.
Hansen believes that is insufficient time to prepare, claiming the All Blacks would never have agreed to a schedule in which they arrived in a country any less than a week before their first match.
“You’d want to be there a week at the minimum,” Hansen, told The Times. “It’s nicer to be longer than that. When we tour we have total control over when we leave the country.”
And the All Black head coach says the Lions should have flown out last week after a number of the players – particularly those from Saracens and Leinster – were able to join up with the squad earlier than expected after being eliminated in the semi-finals of their respective league play-offs.
Gatland had 14 players available to him for the first week of training but 30 were in camp in Ireland last week, with the remainder of the squad joining up this weekend ahead of Sunday’s farewell dinner.
Hansen added: “If most of them are not playing, what’s stopping them getting on a plane now with most of the squad, for example?
“That’s the option you’ve got. The option you have got is for the sake of the team, we’ll get over there and we’ll see [the rest of ] you when you get here. Because what they are asking them to do is pretty difficult: get here Wednesday, play Saturday.”