Seán O’Brien has blamed Warren Gatland and his coaching staff for the British & Irish Lions’ failure to win their series in New Zealand over the summer, insisting the tourists should have completed a 3-0 whitewash against the All Blacks.
The Ireland and Leinster flanker played in all three Tests as the Lions claimed a creditable draw, having been widely written off before departing. In the second Test in Wellington the Lions inflicted a first home defeat on New Zealand in 48 matches but O’Brien has criticised the coaches’ methods in the buildup to the first Test – a 30‑15 defeat – and the series decider, which ended in a 15‑15 draw.
“I’d be pretty critical of it because I think we should have won the tour and we probably should have won it comfortably,” O’Brien said in an interview with Off The Ball. “The first week we definitely over-trained on the Thursday and maybe the coaches were panicking a little bit about getting the information into us. On the first week [of the first Test], we had a triple [session] day, lads’ legs were heavy on the Thursday and we were playing the All Blacks on Saturday.
“We did nearly a similar thing in the last week. So maybe it’s more [from] a coaching point of view, in terms of taking lessons. Less is more sometimes on a tour like that, rather than trying to pick things up at the end of the week.”
The Lions have won a series in New Zealand only once, in 1971, but O’Brien, who scored a memorable try in the first Test defeat, is convinced they should have won all three matches and reserved his most scathing criticism for the backs coach, Rob Howley. “If I was being critical of any coach it would be the fact that I think Rob struggled with the group in terms of his attributes of trying to get stuff across, whereas Johnny [Sexton] and Owen [Farrell] drove everything the second week,” he was quoted as saying in the Daily Mail.
“The coaches have a lot to answer for in terms of our attack rather than Johnny and Faz trying to drive it. I think we should have won 3-0 with the players we had.”
