Father-versus-son clash Gatland Sr can’t afford to lose

It would be nice, he added, if they could get the aforementioned figure down from 78 per cent to 77, but he wasn’t in the mood for picking a fight. “Our job is to come to New Zealand and earn some respect,” he said.

Can they shock the host nation from their complacency? “That’s hopefully the whole plan.”

If it does not begin tomorrow in Whangarei, then it never will. The Lions have played five times in Whangarei’s Toll Stadium and never lost, although the significant element here is less the venue than the opposition. This tour curtain-raiser was always intended as a comparatively light run-out, although it comes rather sooner than expected for Elliot Daly.

Gatland had intended not to pick any players involved in matches for their clubs at the weekend, but broke that rule yesterday by calling up Daly, who played for Wasps in the Premiership final, to be on the bench in place of Jared Payne, who has suffered a calf strain.

The Barbarians team that they are up against contains only one name of real note and that is because he happens to be the Lions coach’s son, Bryn Gatland. There are half a dozen who have been involved in Super Rugby and the remainder are provincial players who have had even less time to gel than the Lions. So the odds, for once, are not against the Lions. Their intention, Gatland said, was to lay down a marker for the more serious examinations ahead.

As for the kind of rugby that they intend to play, Gatland gave indication that his 2017 Lions may be given more licence to play than most Gatland teams. He talked of X-factor players who “can cause surprises”.

“As coaches we have to give them the freedom to go out there and play what is in front of them and be able to express themselves,” he said.

“I said to the players this morning, ‘If we’ve got a four-on-two on our goalline, then the decision to me is that you’ve got to move the ball and do something. I don’t want you to play by numbers, I want you to play what is in front of you.’ ”

Of course, the attention will be very much on individual players and combinations and who can start to stake a claim for the Test team in three weeks’ time. The battle of the three No 10s is fascinating and Gatland repeated that his preference is to regard Owen Farrell as a fly half rather than a centre.

Sexton starts at No 10 tomorrow

DAVID ROGERS/GETTY IMAGES

“That’s our first instinct at the moment,” Gatland said. “We’re considering them as 10s but we know we have a back-up in that we can potentially move Owen to cover the midfield too.”

Gatland added that, in training, Jonathan Sexton had been referring to Farrell as a midfielder rather than a No 10 — only in jest, of course, although it made the point. As Gatland said, Sexton, who starts at No 10 tomorrow, “knows” that he is under pressure for his place.

The family dynamic is also part of the game’s storyline Gatland played against the Lions, for Waikato in 1993, and was on the winning side. He spoke to Bryn on Wednesday and he said: “I have joked with him that we both would have played against the Lions and it’s unfortunate that only one of us would have won. I desperately hope that is the case.”

Bryn Gatland is 22 and is the Barbarians No 10. He is hoping to make a name for himself tomorrow but has said that, beyond the game, his traditional allegiance to the All Blacks will be dropped for the course of his father’s Lions tour.

Of course, such a father v son situation is not new to this group of coaches. Andy Farrell, the Lions and Ireland defence coach, was pitched against England and his son Owen in the Six Nations. It was father who beat son on that occasion; the Lions are expecting this to be a case of same again.