Healy a loss to the tour and the team
For a lot of Lions on tour in Australia, it’s when the big coaching decisions start crystallising themselves. The players will scarcely have noticed they rolled over inferior Barbarians and Western Force sides. The opposition doesn’t mean much because the vast majority are so individually goal-driven at this juncture, they’re not bothered whether the opposition challenges them or not. Nobody’s thinking ‘I can have a handy prep here because we’re playing a weakened side’. They’re just concentrating on themselves, putting themselves in the coaches’ thoughts. That’s not selfish. It’s human.
A few issues have moved quickly into focus. Other plots, like the back row, thicken.
Warren Gatland and his staff opted for Leigh Halfpenny as their frontline goal-kicker against the Force and appear to be working on a Roberts-O’Driscoll midfield partnership, with Davies and Tuilagi providing oomph off the bench.
Fair enough.
So how should Jonny Sexton react? This is a situation he wouldn’t be used to, but the role may change very soon. Both Halfpenny and Sexton are fighting it out to be the Test team goal kicker. That’s your role, that’s what you thrive on.
Neil Jenkins is the kicking coach, and with Halfpenny doing it for Wales for the season, he has the edge. On Wednesday, he didn’t disappoint in Perth, really impressive stuff. Only deep down will Sexton know how he can respond. He’s probably less proven than Halfpenny at international level, at being in clutch positions. Kicking is such a ruthless, heartless business, a game of inches. And Jonny Wilkinson may yet spice up the mix further. All the coaching staff are thinking is: ‘who’s my Tiger Woods? Who’s going to nail the 10ft putts on Sunday afternoon?’
There’s consolation if Sexton’s willing to entertain it. It takes massive pressure off his shoulders, allowing him to thrive off running games and managing the star-studded offence.
Either way, the Lions ain’t short of William Tells to carry this series. 2013 is the one they must win because four years down the road is New Zealand. The Wallaby situation is a stark contrast. Whoever they put at stand-off, Australia are going to struggle because they don’t have a general at 10, somebody the whole team can feed off. You either get strength from the 10 or get worried by him. A bit-part 10 won’t win you a test: Glasgow saw that in the Rabo semi-final where Stuart Hogg was a bit-part kicker. James O’Connor is a hugely exciting talent who will have flashes, but I can’t see where the consistency of performance will come over three games by playing him as a 10.
It’s a long shot now that Cian Healy will even make it to the first test in Brisbane.
Notwithstanding the (overnight) citing decision, it was a shock to me to even see him wheeled off on a stretcher in Perth. Healy is Robocop. He’s never injured. He’s the knight in Monty Python for whom a lost arm is a flesh wound. A physical freak. His flexibility and elasticity for a prop is the stuff of book chapters. He’s kicking drop goals from 50m at 8.45am on a freezing morning when our senses are normally incapable of shock.
As important, he’s a loss to Gatland as a personality, and they’re invaluable on Lions tours. Healy is a positive person, he embraces a tour. And if he’s forced home, he’s a loss on the pitch, in the changing room and in the gap days even to a squad that is hardly short on talent. When it comes to the basics of the game this squad is superior to Australia’s and the environment in which they are performing is way more forgiving. Going to New Zealand, you are going down to the middle of winter. And their winter is well worse than ours. Irish players are scarred too when we hit The Land Where We Haven’t Won. Our history there is a weight; we’ve had three really realistic chances of beating them which we didn’t take.
Australia, however, is a great experience. In South Africa, you were always conscious of safety and told not to go strolling outside your hotel in the evening. However in Oz, you are right in the middle of the circus and the easy engagement of the supporters increases the positivity of the experience.
How many options does Gatland now have in the back row? Traditionally, it’s always been a bountiful area for the Lions. So many back rows are freak athletes who could easily morph into centres or wings. The current crop have hit the ground running. Faletau. Heaslip. Tipuric. O’Brien. And that all presumes Warburton recovers and takes the seven jersey.
Sean O’Brien is interesting. The case for him is compelling, but what the coach will also love is his attitude. He is good, country stock. Competitive, confident, but in the right way. It would be a very big call to leave him out on June 22.
Jamie Heaslip has put himself in the mix too. He’s now hit championship form. His game is at a different level. Back in the early spring, Jamie thought he was hitting the real high notes in the Six Nations, but he wasn’t. He is now. His work-rate on and off the ball is astonishing. Maybe he is now benefiting from spending his Six Nations sleeping in an oxygen tent in his bedroom in Carton House.
The Queensland Reds tomorrow is another brick in the wall. Strength in depth seems to be an issue in Australian rugby at present. The Wallaby first 15 will be hot, but the franchises are struggling for second-tier quality. Again though, the Lions will only concern themselves with Gatland’s playbook.
The Welsh model of backing their fitness and physicality and going to 81 minutes. They’ll exhaust the five metre channels, looking to use the full width of the pitch. A lot of test teams change shape when they pass the 15m line, but Wales and the Lions are different. Frequently, they will send four players down the five-metre channel looking to outwork the opposition. Essentially they are attacking with a full backline and using their forwards each time to get through the hard yards and get six backline players on their feet, ready to strike.
Playing Wales we all knew what was coming, but properly executed, it is difficult to defend. Will the Lions adapt to the gameplan as efficiently?
nEven in a time zone two worlds away, the Heineken Cup draw for next season was digested with breakfast yesterday.
Munster’s draw looks good, there’s every possibility of a productive 2014 there. Racing Metro’s pool is difficult but not insurmountable.
In Harlequins and Clermont, I’ll have played two of the teams in the recent campaign and should be of assistance to my new club.
Leinster? Any pool with the Ospreys is nasty — they’ve been difficult opposition for Leinster in the past — but their big-game hitters are not what they once were.
