Alun Wyn Jones has one complaint about Maro Itoje. He won’t share his cocoa butter. “But that’s OK,” Jones says, “I’ve just got to watch him lather himself up in it.”
If that sounds a little familiar, it is because the British & Irish Lions have thrown the two together as room-mates for the week, to help them develop their burgeoning partnership in the second row.
“I have to make sure he likes all the music and is tucked in at night. Other than that, it’s been nice to work with him.” He already knew about the 22-year-old’s more obvious talents, the two of them have knocked heads often enough, but Jones has learned a lot more about “the leadership qualities Maro’s got” in these past few weeks. That is something Jones knows more than a little about himself.
decider will be the ninth Lions Test the 31-year-old has played in a row across the past three tours. Only a handful have won more Test caps for the Lions and the youngest, the Pontypool prop Graham Price, finished in 1983.
Jones has just overtaken Brian O’Driscoll and Martin Johnson to become the most capped Lions player of the professional era. On Thursday, Johnny Sexton was talking about how the great Lions are “the players you hear about when you’re growing up”, and to be in that category, Sexton said, “would be incredible”. You could say Jones is already there. If the Lions beat the All Blacks in the third Test on Saturday, he certainly will be.
In 2013, Jones took over the captaincy when Sam Warburton injured his hamstring before the third Test. “I was at the back of the queue for captaincy,” he says, “and there was a few people that got taken down at the time.” He is right. Paul O’Connell had broken his arm and O’Driscoll had been dropped. So Jones stepped up. He had led Wales only once before but had grown into a leader over the course of the tour. Before the Test he pulled the team tight into a huddle. Andy Farrell had only just told them there was no tomorrow after that match. Farrell, Jones said, had it all wrong.
Jones said there were two tomorrows. “There’s one with this jersey, and it will remain on you until you finish playing, and until you die, from today, and then there’s the tomorrow without the jersey,” he said, “and we’ve got 80 minutes to choose which one we want. Let’s go.”
Jones was immense that night, he made 13 tackles and 12 carries, more, on both counts, than anyone else in the team. If Warren Gatland has stuck by Jones on this tour, even after he had an underwhelming game in the first Test, and even though Iain Henderson played so well against the Hurricanes in the Lions’ last midweek match, it is because Jones has earned that loyalty.
Jones knows there are a lot of people who think that he should not be in the team. That Henderson or Courtney Lawes should have started instead. “It’s funny,” he says, “I didn’t realise how many selectors there are in the world.” He has read all the opinions on “anti-social media”, as he likes to call it. “There’s always going to be questions asked where there is competition and as long as you can answer those questions then you’re deserving of a place. You’re not going to please everyone but then it’s not about pleasing people, it’s about winning rugby games.”
Similarly, his individual achievements do not seem to matter a damn. “You’re as good as your next game, not your previous, so I’ll focus on the next one. It’s not a time to reflect, because nothing has really been achieved yet.”
No doubt Jones is a different sort of player to the one-man wrecking crew of 2013. He has become the glue that holds the Lions pack together. If you look closely at what he was up to in the second Test you see he was busy making tackles, marshalling the defence and making a nuisance of himself at the breakdown or talking to the referee, helping Warburton decide what to do with the Lions’ penalties and urging Itoje on at the set piece. Loud speeches are not the only way to lead a team.
When the match was over he gleefully joined in with the crowd as they chanted Itoje’s name. “I’m happy to play that supporting role when someone’s flourishing like he is in this team.”
The Lions have more strength in depth at lock than they do in other positions. So much that Jonny Gray, outstanding in the Six Nations Championship, did not even make the squad. So there were always going to be squabbles whoever got picked to start. Jones knows that. “It’s like a race,” he says. Only, he did not mean he, Itoje, Henderson, Lawes and George Kruis were competing against each other. Just the opposite. “You get given the baton and you’ve got to make sure the team stay out in front.” You will not hear a better explanation of the Lions’ ethos than that.
