Lions down under 2013

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Lions warned second Test refereeing will be as pedantic as in Brisbane

Despite criticism of Chris Pollock, Leigh Halfpenny is likely to have more kicks at goal than his four at the Suncorp Stadium
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Sam Warburton, the Lions captain, talks to referee Chris Pollock during the first Test in Brisbane. Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images


OFFICIATING IN FOCUS

It was always likely that the way Chris Pollock interpreted the scrum and breakdown in Saturday's first Test would have a considerable bearing on the outcome, but it was not only the Lions who were concerned about the New Zealander's handling of the game.

Australia kicked three penalties and missed three more after the Lions were blown at the breakdown, mainly for competing for the ball while off their feet or not supporting their own body weight. Warren Gatland complained that his players had been crucified and said he looked forward to Craig Joubert taking charge of the second Test in Melbourne.

That has not often been said before, but Leigh Halfpenny is likely to have more kicks at goal than his four at the Suncorp Stadium. Joubert will be as intolerant as Pollock about players grappling for the ball, but he will not connive at Australia's tendency to flop on the wrong side at the Lions' rucks, slowing down, rather than preventing, release.

The former Australia coach Rod Macqueen spoke last week about how rugby union was in danger of becoming a sport that was decided by referees rather than players because rules that should be black and white are 50 dozen shades of grey.

One of Macqueen's successors, in the 2000s, John Connolly, said on Monday that rugby union was in danger of making itself inaccessible to the casual viewer, therefore threatening its growth, not so much because of arcane laws but baffling and contradictory interpretations.

"In other codes of football, the rules are simpler and referees have less of an influence," said Connolly. "In union, referees have different interpretations: sometimes teams get the rub of the green and on other occasions they do not. It should not be so arbitrary."

Connolly said he did not want to comment on the performance of Pollock, confining himself to: "If the Lions had lost, they would have had every right to have felt upset. I thought they were the better side and deserved to win."

Connolly does not share the view of the Lions' head coach, Warren Gatland, that the tourists will be better off in the second Test with Craig Joubert, the South African who controlled the World Cup final, refereeing.

"Joubert is pedantic," said Connolly. "The penalty count could go through the roof covering the Etihad Stadium and I just hope the International Rugby Board takes a good look at this: interpretation has become everything and if any good comes out of Saturday it is that the issue is now firmly in the spotlight."

The defeat leaves the Australia coach, Robbie Deans, in need of a victory to save his job. There was pressure on him to recall the outside-half Quade Cooper after James O'Connor's fitful display at 10 in Brisbane where he struggled to find an understanding with Will Genia, whose scheming very nearly helped his side to an unlikely victory.

"Cooper should be in the side, but once Deans has made up his mind on someone, there is no going back," said Connolly. "He once dropped Andrew Mehrtens from a Super rugby final after a falling out and it backfired on him.

"If you asked Will Genia, he would say he wanted Cooper at outside-half, but it is not going to happen and it will cost the Wallabies. I cannot see that there is anyway that Deans will survive if the Lions series is lost, and while there was a lot to take from Saturday given the horrendous number of injuries and the brave fightback in the final 20 minutes, he will be judged on his five years in charge.

"His winning percentage [59%] is not good enough to justify another contract. I thought the first Test showed how good a coach Warren Gatland is. He manages players extremely well and his tactics are smart. I thought Tom Young at hooker was an inspired choice and he had an outstanding game.

"I cannot see the Wallabies coming back in the second Test. Kurtley Beale will probably go to 10 with Cooper in the wilderness and we will need to be better at getting the ball wide, especially with Israel Folau so dangerous, and stop kicking to George North who showed that he will leave a defender for dead in a one-on-one."

Australia arrived in Melbourne on Sunday at their conveniently situated hotel, which is only a few punts away from two large hospitals. Pat McCabe, one of their five backs who were injured on Saturday had already been ruled out of the second Test and he was followed by Berrick Barnes and Digby Ioane, who was being hunted by police in Victoria after failing to turn up to a court hearing on Monday.

The Lions have suffered more with prop Alex Corbisiero out with a calf strain and lock Paul O'Connell seeing his tour end because of two broken bones in his arm suffered in the final minutes of the first Test. The two changes they will be forced to make are unlikely to be the only ones.

Tommy Bowe is likely to replace Alex Cuthbert on the right wing given that he would have played in the first Test had he been fit, while Gatland will look for more thrust in the midfield after the Lions played a lot behind the gainline in the first Test.

Jamie Roberts is regarded as a long shot after tearing his hamstring against the Waratahs and Manu Tuilagi returns from injury against the Rebels on Tuesday. He has been chosen at 13 with Brad Barritt at 12 and it would be telling if they switched positions on attack.

The Lions, with the series to win, may play a more narrow game on Saturday, but that would need Mike Phillips to be more assertive at scrum-half: he was lured into a trap in Brisbane, invited to attack space only to run into Ben Mowen, and his box-kicking was weak, leaving him vulnerable to the alternative of Ben Youngs.

The back row should be looked at, but the template has been the team that faced the Waratahs: take out Sean Maitland and Simon Zebo, who was playing instead of the injured North, Roberts, who was injured during the game and Mako Vunipola, who lost his place to Corbisiero, and it was the team that started the first Test.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/23112263

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0PTiFa1epNA#t=43s

 

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/23160601


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/23183294


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/23173587

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THE TAFIA

•Leigh Halfpenny
•Jonathan Davies
•Jamie Roberts
•George North
•Mike Phillips
•Richard Hibbard
•Adam Jones
•Alun Wyn Jones (captain)
•Dan Lydiate
•Toby Faletau (NOT SURE MUST BE FROM THE NORTH)

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British and Irish Lions 2013: Facing a storm of criticism, Warren Gatland was correct on every call


Absurd pressure was placed on him by many who should have known better     
 
Warren Gatland found it impossible not to reach for the martyr’s crown after his brilliant vindication in Sydney, which in some ways was a pity.
 
He had won so much high ground he might have transported himself to the Himalayas for the planting of the flag, but then his pique was understandable, given the absurd pressure placed on his shoulders before the most important match of his career. It was put there by so many who should have known better after his coach’s call that the legendary Brian O’Driscoll had to be discarded.

Yet, away from the scene of an extraordinary triumph, he might well have come up with a less bitter reaction.

Perversely, ironically, enough the hysteria that greeted his decision in the end helped to define the nature of one of the greatest victories and coaching achievements in the history of the Lions.

It showed precisely how much tribalism lies behind the old claim that once every four years the Lions become so close they might be living in each  other’s skins.

They are supposed to surrender  a big sense of themselves in the  flow of perfectly dovetailed communal action.

That was not entirely evident in the expression and gestures of O’Driscoll’s compatriot Jonny Sexton after Gatland hauled him off soon after a missed tackle on James O’Connor that briefly had the potential to be fatal.

In that flashpoint, and the tide of irrational emotion that flowed out of Ireland, especially, when the coach restored Jamie Roberts at the expense of O’Driscoll, we had all the evidence we needed to believe that for the last few weeks the Kiwi Gatland has plainly been stepping close to one ugly controversy or another.

One English sneer was that he was investing too heavily in a failed Welsh team. Former England player Austin Healey claimed that, by leaving out O’Driscoll, Gatland had trampled upon and disfigured the Lions tradition. Former England captain Will Carling systematically dismantled the coach’s tour, and then there were Lions legends roaring at the front of the pack.

Keith Wood claimed that Gatland had made a terrible mistake in leaving out O’Driscoll, one that did a disservice to the Lions. Even more outrageously, the great Willie John McBride claimed: “The Australian media have convinced them to drop O’Driscoll, which I found amazing.”

Even more stunning, of course, is that a man of Gatland’s coaching nous and achievement should be trashed quite so profoundly. It is a bizarre idea, Gatland threading his way through a 100 theories and opinions and then reaching out for some consensus assessment from enemy opinion.

Instead of which, Gatland followed the classic course of a serious coach. He gauged his strengths and then did what all of his calling, at least those who do not live in a state of permanent terror, are sooner or later  required to do.

This is to follow their instincts and knowledge and, sometimes in extreme cases, even their hunches. Gatland concluded that O’Driscoll, for all the meaning of his career, for all the depth of his competitive character, was no longer the man for a critical job.

He also picked an awful lot of Welshmen, which – as we were saying the other day – amounted to an awful lot of team.

The consequence, under the magnificent leadership of the understated but thunderously emphatic Alun Wyn Jones, was a team performance guaranteed not only to demolish a torrent of weak-minded criticism and, even worse, shrill xenophobia, but also to serve as a perfect model for a team gathering together and fashioned so quickly under immense pressure.

Under such a vast weight of second-guessing, the extent of Gatland’s shrewdness in selection was, by the end of the Wallaby slaughter, almost laughable. The combination of Jonathan Davies and Roberts made the O’Driscoll debate seem like a rather sad relic of sports history, though one alleviated by the graceful manner of the great man’s celebration of a  victory to which he had no doubt pined to contribute.

Gatland was right on every issue. The weight of Mike Phillips was important around the scrum – and the selection of the injury-threatened Alex Corbisiero was looking like genius from the award of the first penalty.

There was, far from least, also the restoration of Toby Faletau, a monster of commitment. Faletau’s absence from the first two Tests was a source of bewilderment to many of his warmest admirers. Did Gatland err in seeking flashier alternatives; should he have recalled more vividly the consistent brilliance of the No 8’s performances in the last World Cup? If there was ever a time to ask this question, it was hardly in the glow of the Sydney deliverance.

Gatland had, after all, answered so many questions he might reasonably have been granted a moratorium.

There was no chance of the man of the series, Leigh Halfpenny, enjoying such relief. He is only marginally more voluble than his Welsh team-mate Faletau, and he insists that what eloquence he has is reserved for the field. On Saturday it flowed brilliantly, inexhaustibly, with the boot and on the hoof, and when he stepped forward to receive his award the expression of his coach told us much about a few harrowing days.

It was a mixture of relief and  regard. If in so many respects, Gatland had been required to walk on eggshells, there was one supremely comfortable and soothing chore. It was writing down the name of Halfpenny.

Gatland had to make a late decision on Halfpenny before the last World Cup in New Zealand. The player  carried a barely healed injury on the plane and said that he received the call he felt like crying out aloud.

The coach had been very sure about the need to take Halfpenny to New Zealand and there he saw  him grow into the player who  performed so superbly during these last few weeks. It is what coaches have to do. They have make the tough and tricky calls and then live with the consequences. Ideally, they also kick aside the most gratuitous of the criticism. If Gatland regrets not doing so this last weekend, he can maybe console himself with the fact that no one is perfect.


“All those people who criticised the selection missed the story,” Gatland remarked. “The story wasn’t the team who started the game; the story was the team who ended it.”