Warren Gatland keeping track of the All Blacks

Warren Gatland was on the phone roughly 10 minutes trying to explain what it is that separates the All Blacks from rugby’s mere mortals when the British and Irish Lions coach finally reached for a cricketing analogy.

The key factor? Speed, basically.

“It is kind of like a batsman facing someone at 80 miles an hour,” he explained on conference call from London. “It doesn’t matter how many times he faces someone at 80 miles an hour (when) he comes face to face with a bowler who is bowling at 100 miles an hour.