IT’S SIMPLER to play international matches. All they’re about is winning. You don’t have to be concerned with making a good impression, with consideration of this or that combination. You go out knowing that you have to absorb the pressure and turn it back on the opposition.
All the other games on a Lions tour are a means to an end, which is arriving at the internationals in good shape. It’s not easy to peak, physically and mentally, every week against provincial sides for whom their one game may well be the climax of a career. I admired what the Lions tried to do against Southland on Tuesday but they tried to play too much rugby before the match was won.
That is what you have to do against sides who will try to make life as difficult as they can by whatever means are at their disposal. Even if you just kick penalty goals or dropped goals, the aim is to put as much daylight between them and you on the scoreboard and leave them chasing the game.
I thought that the Lions should have won by 30-plus points. Instead they made problems for themselves by giving the ball back to Southland. You have to create a situation in the first half where the crowd know, and the opposition know, that they are not going to win the game, or even get close. The Lions went wide too early and the Southland defence were able to anticipate what they would do.
But by his selection for Saturday’s game, Clive Woodward has gone for the option which is more familiar in New Zealand than at home. Plenty of guys play both 10 and 12, whereas in Britain, if there is interchangeability, it is usually between 12 and 13. Jonny Wilkinson is comfortable moving out wider; it is a position he has played in before, admittedly six years ago, and it gives the Lions a heck of a distributor from centre.
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There are individual match-ups throughout the sides with that between Richie McCaw and Neil Back the most obvious at open-side flank. But it’s not just Back’s responsibility to take on McCaw, it’s whoever gets their hands on him first. You have to make it a very tough day for him by preventing him from doing what he does best. If you let a McCaw — or Marty Holah — play, if you allow them to make the tackle and instantly get to their feet and get over the ball, you’re in trouble.
But you also have to look at the bench, where you have so many players who can make a difference. Will Greenwood gives you variety in midfield, Ryan Jones and Steve Thompson are bruising ball-carriers, but in the first instance, the coach has gone with the players who do the basics. He has chosen his best lineout and, down the years, Shane Byrne has been very consistent in his throwing for Ireland.
The Lions now face 17 days of the most intense rugby atmosphere and if they come up with two wins, they have done it. The first 20 minutes on Saturday will be among the fastest rugby those players have experienced and the Lions must take advantage of any opportunity on offer.
The backs will have organised moves in training that will not have been seen from this team so far and the set-pieces will be different too. In the provincial matches you would hope to get by as much on speed and athletic ability as anything, but in the internationals you will try and throw in different combinations, anything which may catch the opposition off guard.
Against Fiji, for example, the All Blacks would have concentrated on the basics without showing their hand at all. In Saturday’s game you are looking to spring a surprise at a crucial moment, perhaps just before the interval when an unexpected backs move could earn you seven points. The lineout forwards will have had every New Zealand move analysed but they have to beware of different formations and react smartly.
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With Wilkinson at inside centre, the Lions have one of the best passers of the ball in the world and that immediately asks questions of New Zealand. But all the planning in the world can come to nothing if you do not control the ball, if you do not control the territory and if you cannot bring the opposition’s momentum to a halt.