Donal Lenihan: Warren Gatland is very conscious of not repeating the mistakes of the past
British & Irish Lions head coach Warren Gatland. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan
By the time you read this, I’ll have boarded my first flight in over 17 months, bound for Cape Town, via Frankfurt.
With everything that’s going on in South Africa at present, it’s a bit of a journey into the unknown.
In many respects, that’s exactly what this British and Irish Lions tour feels like. As this will be my ninth such undertaking, in one guise or another, I’m well used to the diverse range of issues that make such undertakings so challenging.
This, however, is a tour with a difference.
Apart from 1986, when the tour to South Africa was cancelled due to the apartheid regime in operation in that country and, as an alternative, I was part of a Lions side that played against the very best from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and France in a one-off test in Cardiff to celebrate the centenary of the IRB, this tour has deviated from the norm more than any other in history.
With the Lions wrapping up their pre-test programme against yet another grossly weakened giant of the South African game in Cape Town last Saturday — the Stormers were short eight frontline players otherwise engaged with the wider Springbok squad — the one-sided nature of those contests has not only served to dilute the impact of the tour on the general public but has also muddied the waters in terms of the test selection that Warren Gatland will reveal later today.
In New Zealand four years ago, the intensity and competitive nature of the games against the likes of Auckland Blues, the Crusaders and Highlanders, served the tourists well and helped separate the wheat from the chaff come selection time for the opening test.
Even then Gatland erred when failing to start with a No 10/12 combination of Johnny Sexton and Owen Farrell, opting for the more physical presence of Ben Te’o in midfield instead. The result? The Lions were blown away in that opening test.
Selection is always the key element going into a Lions series but history is full of incidents where a variety of management teams failed to nail that process.
As forwards coach for the 2009 Lions series against the Springboks, Gatland is still haunted by getting his combinations in the front five completely wrong for the first test, having been duped by the uncompetitive nature of a number of the provincial games on that tour also.
Facing the might of a Springbok pack who completely dismantled the Lions scrum in the opening half, the foundation for a series win was set there and then. Only two of the front five selected for that game made it for the second test with Matthew Rees, Adam Jones, and Simon Shaw coming in for Lee Mears, Phil Vickery, and Alun Wyn Jones respectively.
Their impact was immediate but it was too late to effect the outcome of the series. Gatland is very conscious of not repeating the mistakes of the past.
If he was in any doubt, the reality check posed by the ramp up in physicality the Lions faced in their only competitive fixture so far, against the so called South African A side last week, offered a timely reminder of events and mistakes past. The tour now enters its most competitive phase, on and off the field, when Gatland reveals the make-up of his test side.
Given the passive nature of the opposition, few if any of the Lions players have ruled themselves out of contention for a place. Given they are proven internationals to start with, the fact that very few players have been taken out of their comfort zone means that everyone will fancy their chances of inclusion in the test squad.
For a number of the Lions party, however, the reality that their tour may well be over before it has really begun will hit home once Gatland’s deliberations become public knowledge.
With no midweek games between now and the completion of the test series on August 7 — the first time that has ever happened on a Lions tour — for some players, their contribution to the series will now be confined to offering meaningful opposition on the training paddock.
That is going to be difficult for those players to deal with and will require close monitoring by the management. Given the restrictive nature of the tour, with no opportunity for activities or downtime outside the confines of the team hotel, that will be challenging.
That said, it hasn’t exactly been plain sailing for the Springbok management either. Their lead into the series had already been severely compromised by the fact they hadn’t played a single Test since the World Cup final in November 2019.
While they managed one outing against Georgia a few weeks ago, a second game had to be cancelled after 20 players and management tested positive for Covid since they assembled from all over the rugby playing world.
In terms of any Springbok form lines, all we have to go on is the impressive opening half from that strong A combination against the Lions when they blew the tourists away in the opening 30 minutes before running out of steam.
With so many players impacted by Covid, including inspirational captain Siya Kolisi, we have no idea what the lingering effects of contracting the virus might have on their readiness for an explosive series of this nature.
Having had a request for a second game against Lions turned down by Gatland, Rassie Erasmus organised an alternative fixture against the Blue Bulls as a curtain-raiser to the tourists’ game against the Stormers last weekend.
Stung by losing out on their scheduled tour game against the Lions due to another Covid outbreak in their camp, the Bulls responded in kind by beating a much changed Springbok combination 17-14.
Before reading too much into that result however, that clash must be put into context. I have no doubt the Bulls, South Africa’s leading province led by former Springbok World Cup winning coach Jake White, were bulling for this contest and the opportunity for some of their players to promote themselves in front of the Springbok coaches.
From the A team’s perspective, they were never going to be as motivated for this outing as they were against the Lions four days earlier. I remember featuring on an Irish XV that was beaten by Gloucester at Kingsholm two weeks out from the 1991 World Cup. The Irish squad had been picked that week and, let’s just say, Gloucester showed far more hunger for battle than we did.
At that stage, it was all about playing in the World Cup. Within a few weeks, many of that same Irish XV lost by a point to eventual winners Australia in the World Cup quarter-final. Gloucester later boasted they could have won the World Cup, despite the fact the Wallabies beat England in the final.
Motivation and mindset plays such a major part in sport that I wouldn’t be reading too much into last weekend’s defeat of the Springbok squad, apart from the fact that a number of their players are still short of serious game time going into this series.
The team that new coach Jacques Nienaber announced yesterday, 24 hours ahead of schedule, is jam packed with top level experience with 11 of their starting side from the 2019 World Cup final, including the entire backline.
That said some, including try-scoring sensation Makazole Mapimpi and towering second-row Lood de Jäger, have not played for several weeks while out-half Handre Pollard has only recently recovered from a cruciate knee ligament injury that had kept him out for 10 months.
For that reason alone, the Lions are well set up going into Saturday’s key opening test with the very unusual scenario of having more game time together than the hosts. That has never happened on a Lions tour before.
Whether it will be enough to see the tourists over the line and put themselves in a commanding position for a series win remains to be seen.
Roll on Saturday.
