Brave? Yes. Desperate? Absolutely not. It has been said Warren Gatland is a man with nothing to lose, that he’s rolling the dice by picking Johnny Sexton and Owen Farrell together. Make no mistake, Gatland has heaps to lose. Fail to win and the series is gone, so clearly a lot of thought has gone into this decision.
I think it’s an exciting selection. Before the tour started and as the warmup matches got going, I thought Sexton and Farrell would play together and Gatland has probably looked at the first Test, realised where the Lions were effective and realised they are going to have to score tries because he knows full well the All Blacks are going to score tries.
I feel a bit sorry for Ben Te’o, he caused Sonny Bill Williams problems and kept him quiet defensively. I would imagine Williams will be looking at that axis – and Farrell is a competent tackler and good defensively, but it may be an area the All Blacks target. We can look forward to Te’o coming off the bench though and hopefully up against Ngani Laumape – what a player he is.
But back to the starting lineups and the reason I originally expected Sexton and Farrell to play is, in a word, balance. On one hand it gives the Lions the ability to get the ball wider, quicker; even if it is only a fraction of a second quicker, it can make a huge difference. And it is another kicking option. Now the Lions have those two and Jonathan Davies’s left boot.
Having two playmakers makes it easier to change the gameplan as you go. They can think: “Right, let’s move the ball wider or let’s be nice and direct, play a kicking game and put the All Blacks back in behind, pin them in the areas where they don’t want to be.” Farrell will allow more fluidity in getting the ball to the wide channels and maybe Gatland thinks the Lions can get at Anton Lienert-Brown or Waisake Naholo who, as amazing as he is with ball in hand, may be suspect defensively when it comes to positioning.
It is popular in New Zealand and Australia to have that second five-eighth, but Farrell knows what he is doing. It’s not like it’s Sexton and Dan Biggar together – great fly-halves in their own right but both out and out 10s. If that were the case the Lions would have problems because they’d both end up occupying the same space but Farrell has shown for England he is more than capable in that area in the field.
Speaking from a fly-half’s point of view, it can be so beneficial to have another playmaker outside you. I’ve played with Aaron Mauger at 12 – he wasn’t really a 10 but filled in every now and then – but he would be my eyes when it came to the outside channels and the space in behind. When you have that outside you, you don’t have to worry about so many things and as he used to do for me, Farrell will be constantly painting the picture for Sexton.
It means you don’t have to worry about what’s going on in the outside channels because you’ve got a guy out there who is communicating that for you. When he wants the ball, you listen to him and then bang, you distribute and transfer the ball. Or if he’s saying to you there’s space over behind the left wing you put the ball in that area and you can react quickly rather than having to look for that space yourself. You can trust that call. It’s fantastic having a really competent centre and a communicator to organise forwards in that area. If you’re at 10 and you have someone who doesn’t speak much at 12 and 13, you’re being asked to organise out there as well as inside you which can make life quite difficult.
People may watch the game and think all you have to do is pass, then pass again and the ball makes its way out wide but actually it takes a lot of organisation, especially in phase play. Set-piece play is fine, it’s structured, but in phase play the numbers can vary. You will have forwards in between you and the other backs, maybe forwards that don’t like being in the wider channels – they don’t have the same distribution skills and they don’t know the calls. So having someone that can organise out there, from 10-15 metres away from where you are as a fly-half, is a huge benefit. And as someone who plays 10 a lot, Farrell will know that.
But for all that Farrell knows how to play at inside-centre, the key for him is to get into the positions to influence the play. It’s all very well being a playmaker out in that 12 position but if you’re sitting too deep that doesn’t help anyone. He needs to have that connectivity with Sexton inside him but also outside him, with Liam Williams and the wings, that connection is very important.
The most intriguing thing is the tactical battle. The intensity is guaranteed, the tension is guaranteed, but how do the Lions react after New Zealand played through Aaron Smith so much to nullify the line speed? Do they put extra defenders in that guard area and around the ruck, and leave the All Blacks with extra numbers out wide? Do they go wide themselves and force the All Blacks to change their approach? Will the Lions shut down the wide channels completely and think their extra physicality can get the job done? There are so many eventualities but with both Sexton and Farrell the Lions are better equipped to handle more of them.
