Bulloch confident Lions can bounce back

FOUR days on and the sour taste of defeat at the hands of the New Zealand Maori still lingers in the mouths of the British & Irish Lions.

Their 19-13 loss in Hamilton on Saturday, the first reverse in game three of this 11-match tour to New Zealand, has been dissected and discussed by coaches, analysts, journalists and fans over clipboards, videos, notebooks and pint glasses from Inverness to Invercargill and most are still none the wiser.

So best leave it to a player to cut through the technospeak, the guff and the pub talk and get straight to the point.

Lions hooker Gordon Bulloch watched the game from the stands at the Waikato Stadium and has since shared in the frustration of his 22 colleagues who suited up at the weekend. And in fact, the reasons behind the loss are easily explained.

“I think we would have been a lot more disappointed if we had actually played well and they had beaten us but we didn’t,” Bulloch said.

“We didn’t get territory, we didn’t have lots of possession, we didn’t play at all well and it’s given us lots of areas to work on. It’s clear to see at the breakdown, we’ve got to be a lot more clinical there, get more numbers in there and protect the ball well for the backs to work with.

“When we did do that in their 22 at the end Brian (O’Driscoll) showed what he could do (scoring a try) and that we can break out of defence quite easily.”

Still, it is put to Bulloch, it was a good game not to be a part of. He doesn’t bite. As a late replacement for Phil Greening on the 2001 tour to Australia, he has seen what happens when players start putting self before team.

“I think everyone wants to play every game,” he said. “It’s a team effort and whether we were playing or not none of us wanted the team to lose from a players’ point of view.

“I think a big downfall of the last tour was that there were splits in the party but everyone has been working well together here; the front rows and the second rows have been working hard at improving our scrummaging and our lineouts and moving forward. Once you start getting splits in the squad and guys are not getting on with each other and wanting the others to do badly, that’s when this tour will go down.”

Bulloch, who was named as back-up to Ireland’s Shane Byrne in this morning’s 22 to face Wellington also believes that keeping the squad united is made easier by the sheer number of players still with genuine Lions Test ambitions, particularly in his position.

The Scot, one of four hookers in the 2005 squad alongside Byrne, Steve Thompson and Andy Titterrell, said everything is still up for grabs.

“That’s the great thing about touring. It’s full of surprises. There are guys who think they are just Wednesday players who can suddenly come forward and put their hands up for Test selection. It happened in ‘97, and happened in 2001. The prime examples are (Scotland prop) Tom Smith in ‘97 and Martin Corry the last time so that shows that so-called outsiders can come on tour and get Test selections.”