Soon enough the longest wait in rugby will be over. Warren Gatland can still expect loads of advice between now and the first Test against the All Blacks on 24 June but after this week’s selection excitement the tone will swiftly change. Picking a British and Irish Lions squad to tour New Zealand is a lot easier than coming back victorious.
It certainly pays to hear from those who have made the same trek in the past and experienced, rugby-wise, a parallel universe. “Their rugby was different from anything I had experienced before; at times it was just wave after wave after wave,” recalled Ollie Campbell, the great Irish fly-half who was part of the 1983 squad. “It was like standing on the beach trying to keep the tide back; eventually it just goes over you.”
Thirty-four years later it is Gatland’s turn to locate enough cutely-placed sandbags to divert the onrushing New Zealand menace. It is possible to get lost in the playing merits of one individual versus another and forget what he can add on a midweek night in Rotorua when collective spirits need boosting. The Lions have their eyes firmly fixed on the three-Test series but as Ian McGeechan has warned: “It is not just the Test matches that find you out in New Zealand.” The provincial teams, from Auckland to Dunedin, have been waiting 12 years for a shot and the oval-shaped spotlight is unwavering. “A significant number of our squad could not handle the pressure of life in New Zealand,” concluded McGeechan, reflecting on the 1993 tour, when the Lions lost the series 2-1.
Few appreciate this more keenly than Gatland; he was a member of the Waikato pack who steamrollered the midweek Lions 38-10 on that same trip. With his son, Bryn, also a member of the Provincial Barbarians squad set to face the touring side in their opening fixture, there has never been a Lions coach with more of a finger on the Kiwi pulse. It has to be an advantage when it comes to identifying resilient, tough players best equipped to prey on All Black minds.
That may just be how Gatland identifies the final couple of bits of his jigsaw before the grand squad unveiling in west London. New Zealanders respect winners, so the hard core of the Ireland team that defeated the All Blacks in Chicago last autumn will be back. So will a posse from the Lions’ last winning series in Australia in 2013, along with a majority share of England’s recent world-record equalling Test side; hard nuts and optimists will always be welcome. If nothing else, rarely will the Lions have pitched up in New Zealand with a more vigorous pack of forwards.
No one is remotely suggesting players such as Kieran Read and Brodie Retallick will be instantly intimidated but, en masse, the sea of red will keep on coming just as Campbell’s All Black waves once did. If Gatland is lucky – and with only WP Nel of his potential first-choice pack currently unavailable through injury – there should be more than enough dynamism and ballast to oil the remainder of a successful rugby team’s component parts.
Unless England’s captain Dylan Hartley mounts a successful late bid to oust Ken Owens, or Cian Healy supplants Joe Marler – an additional prop could yet swell the party to 38 – the forwards will not be far removed from the group suggested in these pages almost a month ago. Only Joe Launchbury may have paid the price for the failure of both England and Wasps to win in Dublin, with the harder-hitting Courtney Lawes and Donnacha Ryan lurking. Sam Warburton’s knee injury is not serious enough to sideline him from the captaincy and Alun Wyn Jones, his nearest rival, will be only one of a high-class posse of set-piece operatives.
There have been very few, if any, indications that the Rotorua-born Hartley will make the cut; having been selected last time only to miss out through suspension, it would be suitably perverse if he is not chosen initially yet belatedly makes it as an injury replacement. Should the Lions need a hooker who specialises in roaring off the bench Jamie George has all the credentials and Best already knows what it feels like to captain a team to Test victory over the All Blacks. Owens, meanwhile, was as conspicuous in the loose in the Six Nations as any of his rivals. The mind drifts back to England’s tour of New Zealand in 2014 when Hartley, back on his home patch amid much fanfare, started the final Test in Hamilton only to endure a disappointing game as England lost 36-13.
With Peter O’Mahony having also emerged as a potentially strong midweek captain and George Kruis fit again, the other main judgment call is behind the scrum where Leigh Halfpenny’s goalkicking, so crucial to the Lions four years ago, has to be weighed up against the differing strengths of Scotland’s Tommy Seymour and Ireland’s Simon Zebo. With Liam Williams a potential starter on the left wing in the Test matches, it would help to have another specialist 15 to compete with Stuart Hogg with Rob Kearney having chosen a bad time to succumb to injury.
Jonathan Joseph is under pressure, perhaps the victim of perceptions that others may crave a Lions cap slightly more. His defensive aptitude will take some replacing but it might open up a spot for Garry Ringrose, the young Irish centre tipped for great things by no less a judge than the peerless Brian O’Driscoll. One who does fit Gatland’s midfield template is Ben Te’o; once a team-mate of Jonny Sexton’s at Leinster, he grew up in the southern hemisphere, carries dynamically and is equally accustomed to linking with Owen Farrell and Elliot Daly. Maybe a late left-field bolter will emerge – Joey Carbery, Ross Moriarty, Steffon Armitage, Josh van der Flier, Denny Solomona or Christian Wade, anyone? – but, either way, Gatland will be unveiling a squad of substance.
Possible Lions squad
Backs: S Hogg (Scotland), L Halfpenny (Wales), L Williams (Wales), E Daly (England), G North (Wales), A Watson (England), J Davies (Wales), R Henshaw (Ireland), G Ringrose (Ireland), B Te’o (England), O Farrell (England), D Biggar (Wales), J Sexton (Ireland), C Murray (Ireland), R Webb (Wales), B Youngs (England).
Forwards: R Best (Ireland), J George (England), K Owens (Wales), J Marler (England), J McGrath (Ireland), M Vunipola (England), D Cole (England), T Furlong (Ireland), K Sinckler (England), I Henderson (Ireland), M Itoje (England), A W Jones (Wales), G Kruis (England), C Lawes (England), S O’Brien (Ireland), P O’Mahony (Ireland), C Stander (Ireland), J Tipuric (Wales), S Warburton (Wales), T Faletau (Wales), B Vunipola (England).
White heat
With more than a dozen players otherwise engaged in New Zealand, Eddie Jones’s England squad announcement for this summer’s Argentina tour on Thursday will not leave their places unfilled for long. Sam Underhill, Mike Haley, Joe Marchant, Alex Lozowski, Don Armand and Dan Robson do not have a full cap between them but would all be in my squad; if Jones has any other personnel hunches ahead of the 2019 Rugby World Cup now is the moment to act upon them.
And another thing ...
A couple of days on the touchline at England U16 academies’ tournament at Wellington College last week suggested the youthful conveyor belt is healthy enough. With the sons of, among others, Stuart Lancaster, Michael Lynagh and Steve Ojomoh representing Yorkshire Carnegie, Harlequins and Bath respectively, there was also a nice sense of generational progression. Inevitably, though, the first thing everyone remarked upon was the height and strength of the 15- and 16-year-old giants on view; the modern teenager makes the Hungry Caterpillar look positively starved. Noticeably fewer in number were smaller, visionary playmakers capable of outwitting the bigger lads given half a yard of space. Rugby union absolutely has to make sure it remains a game for all shapes and sizes.
