Warren Gatland began with a warning. The last thing the Lions need, he said, is any extra attention. So if his words were spun into gaudy stories and sensational headlines, he would simply stop talking to the press. Then, with his very next breath, Gatland explained that some of the All Blacks’ fans were so arrogant that he was “embarrassed” by their behaviour, a remark which seems unlikely to go down all that well back in New Zealand.
Perhaps it was all part of the Lions head coach’s elaborate plan to get himself out of the endless cycle of commercial engagements.
Gatland was at Eden Park for the All Blacks’ last Bledisloe Cup match against Australia last month. “As a Kiwi, I was embarrassed,” he said. “There was still a large portion of the crowd booing [Australia’s] Quade Cooper. Get over it.”
Cooper has been a pantomime villain in New Zealand since he shoved Richie McCaw in a match in Hong Kong in 2010. In another game, the next year, he caught McCaw in the head with a knee. Despite all that, McCaw himself has described Cooper as a “decent bloke”‚ and Beauden Barrett echoed his words last month when he called Cooper “a good bloke who deserves to be treated just like anyone else”.
Gatland, who played 17 non-international matches for New Zealand without appearing in a Test, said: “One of the things I was proud of as a Kiwi was showing humility. The All Blacks try to do that but there’s a proportion of New Zealanders that have a little bit of arrogance and not humility. It was the first time that I’ve sat there and thought: ‘We’re better than this.’”
It was not just the boos that bothered Gatland. He was also unimpressed by a cartoon on the front cover of the New Zealand Herald’s sport section which showed Australia’s head coach, Michael Cheika, dressed as a clown. The Wallabies captain, Stephen Moore, said at the time that he thought the cartoon was “disrespectful”. Gatland seemed to agree with him.
“You can be proud but you’ve still got to show humility and respect,” he said. “In the past New Zealanders have prided ourselves on that and been humble about the success of the rugby team.”
Gatland was keen to stress it was just a number of the fans who he feels were in the wrong, rather than the team themselves, despite the spat between Cheika and the All Blacks’ head coach, Steve Hansen.
“Obviously there’s history between Steve Hansen and Cheika that’s come out on a few occasions, but the squad and team have tried to play things down,” he said. The 53-year-old insisted he is not so worried about how those same fans will treat the Lions next summer, however. “I think it’s just something that’s between Australia and New Zealand.”
The New Zealanders, Gatland went on to say, have fond memories of the Lions’ fans from their last tour in 2005. In fact he thinks they also learned a thing or two about how to behave. “One of the things the Lions fans taught the New Zealand public was how to support a team even when they weren’t going well. The Kiwis aren’t good at that, when the team’s losing we’re not good supporters. But the Lions fans were.”
Gatland is hoping that this time round the Lions fans may get to teach the Kiwis a little something about how to be gracious in victory too.
Warren Gatland was speaking at the launch of the ’untouchable’ Canterbury British & Irish Lions jersey. Visit Canterbury.com
