If the British & Irish Lions tour of New Zealand in 2005 is best summed up as a circus then perhaps Clive Woodward’s lingering regret is overlooking the self-styled “lion tamer”.
Woodward decided against handing a place on his staff to the defence coach Dave Ellis, who subsequently became the Englishman working for the enemy – seconded by Graham Henry to help the All Blacks before their 3-0 series win. “It was satisfying because I was disappointed to be overlooked by the Lions,” Ellis says. “On the flight home I wore a T-shirt that my brother had sent me which said ‘lion tamer’ on the back – it didn’t go down very well.”
Ellis’s triumphalism was understandable. He had been criticised for accepting Henry’s offer and he believes the All Blacks role cost him his job with Gloucester. Internationally, however, his reputation was enhanced, even if he had already showed his worth as France’s defence coach by helping them to grand slams in 2002 and 2004.
Woodward’s reasons for overlooking him are less clear. He opted for Phil Larder and Mike Ford, defence coaches with England and Ireland respectively. Contact from Henry arrived the next day and in an email outlining his plan for taking down the Lions, Ellis signed off, “I am English but have never been part of the establishment of English rugby and nothing would delight me more than working with you to defeat the Lions. My commitment to the cause would be total”.
The damage was done in the opener at Christchurch – the All Blacks cruising to a 21-3 victory with Woodward’s side managing a solitary penalty from Jonny Wilkinson. Woodward and the press officer Alastair Campbell deflected attention from the Lions’ woeful performance by drawing as much attention as possible to the spear tackle on Brian O’Driscoll by Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu. It left the Lions captain with a dislocated collarbone within a minute of the start.
“The big part of the defensive gameplan was closing down O’Driscoll,” says Ellis, now at Lyon. “Wilkinson [at inside-centre] was only going to be a second No10 so the only running danger would be coming from O’Driscoll. But it was just something that happened at one particular ruck and it was only a case of closing him down. At that time he was at the peak of his career, one of the form players in world rugby. There was no particular threat from Wilkinson creating space for himself and beating people, or from [the fly-half Stephen] Jones.”
The controversy over the tackle on Driscoll has lingered, in part owing to the vitriol aimed at Umaga and Mealamu which did not sit well in New Zealand. There can be little doubt there was serious foul play but the refusal – even retroactively – of officials to sanction either player made things worse. “As we’re seeing on this tour, games against the Lions are refereed a little bit differently,” Ellis says. “Matches tend to be a lot more physical and the referees are more lenient as to what goes on but the incident with O’Driscoll was blown out of all proportion. It felt like it was the first game and people were already looking for excuses.”
In his email to Henry, Ellis predicted “the English back row of Dallaglio, Hill and Back will play a major role in the Lions Test team and they will adopt the very tight, restraining gameplan”. He would surely have been right had Dallaglio not suffered a broken ankle in the first tour match, while Ellis also recalls that Woodward was stuck between appeasing the 2005 grand slam-winning Wales team and leaning on his World Cup winners.
“We knew Phil Larder had big problems – he had a well-organised English defence but we knew he’d have difficulty with so many Welsh players,” he says. “We knew Jones was not a good defender, O’Driscoll jumps the line – weak areas like that the All Blacks could use to their advantage.
“They had to come to the table with ideas you don’t use with your own country – that everybody can buy into. You’ve got to come up with a different gameplan. Their major problem was all the publicity around the team. It was the biggest squad they had ever taken, the largest amount of money invested. When you make big noises about what you’re going to do you have to be able to back it up and unfortunately the Lions couldn’t do that in any department whatsoever.”
Following the opening Test defeat, Dan Carter produced one of the greatest fly-half performances in a 48-18 victory before the “Blackwash” was sealed with a 38-19 triumph. “Personally it was a fantastic challenge,” Ellis says. “I got criticised for doing it but I’ve no regrets whatsoever. For the Lions it was a disappointing series – it got totally out of control. The Lions had been thrown to the All Blacks, not the other way around.”
