Forget Warrenball, Lions have new battle plan
Attack coach tells team to react as game unfolds Lions need to beat Blues today to silence critics
Rob Howley, the Lions attack coach, is adamant that he has no idea what ‘Warrenball’ means and intends to promote ‘rugby chaos’ as the tourists look to find a way to challenge the freewheeling New Zealand Super Rugby sides, starting with the Auckland Blues at Eden Park today.
An “explosive” training session on Monday was evidence to Howley that the Lions are getting to grips with the ‘rugby chaos’ strategy that the attack coach wants the team to adopt. The unstructured approach is an antidote to the one-dimensional ‘Warrenball’ label that the locals have pinned on this squad in anticipation of Warren Gatland using the direct gain-line tactics that have served him well down the years.
Howley, who has worked under as well as alongside Gatland at Wasps, Wales and the Lions, insists there has never been any such thing as a clear ‘Warrenball’ strategy.
“I don’t know what that means,” said Howley, who is on his third Lions tour as coach. “Have we been playing that way? I’m not too sure. One thing players have enjoyed is what we call rugby chaos, 15 against 15, it’s very unstructured. It is a work in progress still.
“We are working on our foundations, putting some principles of how we want to play in place and having a framework so that players have the ability to play what is in front of them. It is about playing smart, intelligent rugby.
“We’re all aware of the pace of the game in the southern hemisphere. That’s the nature of the game here, playing from chaos, from kick returns and turnovers. It’s the ability to react in those situations and to not get left behind, to be ahead of the game. That’s something we’ve talked about with 15 v 15, the rugby chaos.
“We did a drill on Monday, an offload drill and the contact was explosive. Things got pretty heated, which is what you would expect in such a competitive environment. It’s all in its infancy but we’ll see an improvement on Wednesday.”
That will have to be the case if the Lions are to beat a Blues team containing eight former and current All Blacks, including centre Sonny Bill Williams, who came through a fitness test on a knee injury yesterday to take his place in the line-up, a timely presence with Steve Hansen naming a 33-man squad tomorrow for the game against Samoa on June 16 and the Lions series.
Howley is confident the Lions will be in much better fettle by that juncture, as they will need to be if they are to get anywhere near the world champions who have swept nearly all before them since winning the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
Howley is well versed in the delicate matter of finding common ground among the disparate styles of the respective (four) nations. As a player the former Wales scrum-half featured on two tours and this is his third time as an assistant coach. The cardinal rule for Howley is to not be prescriptive.
There is little time to implement structures and the players themselves have a significant input into the way the on-field game will be
played. Howley warns against information overload, preferring to trust in what evolves in sessions.
“We don’t want to give them information, we want them to go out and play and that’s what the message has been over the last three weeks,” said Howley. “There are obviously messages that you have to get out, you have to get numbers around the ball so there’s a bit of structure there, but ultimately it’s about playing some intelligent rugby.
“When you work with quality players you get an understanding of their mindset and how they see the pictures on the field. They are the ones who put an identity into the jersey.”
Those charged with imbuing that red jersey with something of substance are well aware of their responsibilities against the Blues. The stuttering nature of the opening 13-7 win over the Provincial Barbarians has already had the locals writing off the chances of the Lions for the Test series even though half the squad have yet to feature. A wholly changed XV will run down the Eden Park tunnel today in front of a 40,000 crowd, fired by an awareness that they have to bring credibility to the tour.
“A win is very important as we have to keep rolling and build momentum,” said tighthead prop Dan Cole, one of only three previous Lions tourists in the starting XV. “It is essential we perform and push the tour forward.”
The Lions travel to Christchurch tomorrow, where they face the unbeaten Crusaders on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Gatland’s coaching methods have received backing from an unlikely source – today’s opponents, the Auckland Blues.
Their high performance manager, Tony Hanks, insisted yesterday that criticism of Gatland’s style was misplaced. Hanks, who was part of Gatland’s backroom team while he was head coach at Wasps between 2002 and 2005 when the club won the Premiership title on three occasions, said there was so much more to the Lions head coach than the term ‘Warrenball’ suggested.
“Warren’s a much more positive coach than that term gives him credit for,” Hanks told The Daily Telegraph. “Look at how his teams play without the ball. They’re aggressive and attacking all the time. Test rugby is different to Premiership or Super Rugby; you have to earn the right.
“When they get that right – I’ve seen times when Wales put the All Blacks under pressure and while they couldn’t go the distance, they’re able to put big teams under pressure with that game. It’s a collision-based game and you know his teams will be conditioned for that.”