Coaches banking on Lions’ power game in final test

Warren Gatland and his British and Irish Lions think-tank emerged from their night of the long knives convinced they have a match-day squad to win the third and final Test against Australia on Saturday.

After six weeks and nine matches beginning in Hong Kong, the Lions selectors — Gatland plus coaches Graeme Rowntree, Rob Howley, Andy Farrell and Neil Jenkins — still have a first series victory in 16 years within their grasp.

Yet having lost the second Test in Melbourne last Saturday, if only by the narrowest of margins, the feeling as they convened in Noosa on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast on Tuesday night was that the Wallabies were in the box seat and drastic changes were needed if this tour was to emulate the 1997 series win over South Africa and not go the way of the previous three.