Lions v Sharks

What to say?

The Sharks were gutted, half their team was missing, and it was pretty much have one, skip one, have one, skip one through the side so their combinations were off. Despite that, for the first half, the Sharks tackled their guts out and whilst they never looked good for the win, they looked promising to keep the scores down.

However, the tackling started slip with fatigue, the Lions managed to get some fast ball from the breakdown, and started to score. The 39-3 final result might be thought to be flattering, but given the amount of pressure the Lions exerted it was probably a reasonably fair reflection of the game.

Also of interest was the refereeing of the scrum. It was noticeable in the first half that Kaplan pinged Jenkins every time. In the second half, once he moved around and looked at what was going on, he pinged the Sharks every time instead. I think there was a perception amongst referees that the Lions were cheating, and Kaplan's actions have, hopefully, changed that - he came to realise that the Lions weren't cheating and that will spread through the other officials I think.

Of concern - the breakdown still. The Lions should be praying that Martyn Williams is fit and can get a run on Saturday and see if he can do a better job. I'm not sure if he will, but it will be hard for him to do a worse job.

See next post for a Lions starting group.

Lions v Cheetahs

This was a frustrating match to watch. I watched it with a South African friend who was also frustrated.

The Lions after their performance on Wednesday should have shone, but didn't. Whilst the match was going on there were two obvious problems.

Firstly there was no fetcher - no one like McCaw, Martyn Williams etc. This meant, after the Cheetahs settled in to the game at least, that they could slow the ball down at the contact area most of the time, and force the Lions into giving up penalties. This they duly did, and Hook (who had sparkled with faster ball) fell back into having fewer choices. One level I'm pleased for him, because he showed he can play that kick-the-corners dull, slow game if needed - something that was lacking a year ago, but it did make for a dull game. I'm not going to blame anyone beyond Geech for no fetcher - when Martyn Williams pulled out, Worsely is NOT the ideal replacement. He's a blind-side that can switch to open, but he's not a fetcher. When he's played open-side he's either had an even better blind-side (Betsen) playing, and a fetcher at 8, or a fetcher at 6 instead of 7.

The other thing - where were the offloads? OK, Shane offloaded and gave away an intercept try, but Williams, Hook, and Byrne were the only players looking for the offloads. Earls didn't, Fitzgerald didn't, Halfpenny didn't (but he was fixed out on the wing without players outside him, so less problem there). But it made defending easier because the Cheetahs could just hit the player and know there would be no change to the point of attack - makes the defence pretty easy you'd think, and as it showed. And, to go back to point one, after the tackle, because the Cheetahs knew there wasn't going to be an offload and there was no fetcher they could flood in and slow everything down, and even turn the ball over. If you can't recycle the ball quickly for whatever reason, surely it's not the work of genius to work out you don't give collision areas? Wales won a grand slam doing that after all!

The highs and lows of scratch rugby teams

The Lions, after a couple of weeks together, played an invitational Royal XV. The top players from Britain and Ireland played a side in which only two of them had any Super-14 experience, and that for "bad" Super-14 sides like the Cheetahs who are always in the bottom two or three places.

The Lions, eventually, won. They didn't really deserve to though. There were a lot of new combinations on the pitch, and you would have to say that they didn't work. None of them. The front row creaked, the second row folded, the back row struggled on the back of that. 9, 10, 12 didn't work too well - I know I'm down on ROG, but I'm blaming him again. Both scrum halves expected him to be further forwards than he was. This left him reaching for the ball and kicking and passing off-balance. You can argue that a 9 should be passing to the 10, but in the heat of the moment they pass to where they expect him to be (The Baa-baas v England had a couple of great shots of this, and Marshall to Jackson it worked like a dream) and my gut feeling is the passes were OK, but O'Gara runs slightly slower in a match situation than training, hence the passes looking bad.

Because ROG was scrappy, Roberts got a lot of dump-off ball. He coped admirably, and had a pretty good game, but because it was dump-ball he struggled to be really creative with it.

Earls had a shocker. I feel sorry for him, the youngest player, started nervously and got worse, not better. Some of the blame for that must go to POC too, who ignored him early and let it get worse.

The back three had a pretty good game. There were odd mistakes in there, including a howler from Shane Williams, but everyone makes mistakes every now and again, and that's probably it for a big one from Shane for the tour. They were really the only players that shone, plus Roberts. I'm not sure what the coaches learnt, but what I learnt is that the Lions have to really pull their socks up quickly, or they're stuffed come Test time.

In contrast two not-scratch sides faced in the Super-14 final. The Bulls crushed the Chiefs. Some of that was the exhaustion factor; the Chiefs played two tough matches, then flew from New Zealand to Pretoria, and played the Bulls. The Lions won't have that. But the Bulls, before the last 20 minutes and racking up the score, were still clearly in the lead. They stopped, almost completely, the most efficient attacking unit in Super 14 rugby. They scored comfortably, and were dominant all round the pitch. The Bulls, with a leavening of Sharks, Stormers, and maybe the odd Lion and Cheetah, will make up the Boks, and they will play a LOT better than the Royal XV.

And then the Baa-baas v England. A really scratch team - they only met last week - ran England ragged for 60 minutes. Their lines were sublime, their experience showed, and it didn't show that they were a scratch team. England, who admittedly were also somewhat fresh-faced in many positions, didn't have a clue, until changes to players and fatigue meant that the lack of established partnerships and patterns meant the defence of the Baa-baas creaked, groaned and cracked and England clawed their way back to make it close. Justice was, however, served as the Baa-baa loose forwards pulled off another big tackle, another turn over, and ran the ball into touch to end the game.

The Baa-baas were a more experienced group than the Lions, but there were fewer experienced partnerships on the pitch, which ought to make a difference. But they played sublime attacking rugby, and good defensive patterns and really deserved to win by more. This match, and hopefully next week's against Australia, are wonderful examples of why the Baa-baa matches remain popular. Attractive running rugby, high skills, good spirit and the names of last year, or the year before, showing the young pups they've still got it. Glorious - and beating England even better of course!

Penalty shoot-out

I have to say, in common with a lot of the commentators and fans I didn't like the penalty shoot-out to end the Heineken Cup semi-final. The first few kickers, OK, they're all skilled, practised kickers - it's a fair challenge of a skill they're meant to be good at. Past that... Williams v Crane taking penalty shots? Farcical. It did produce a winner, but in such a fashion that even die-hard Leicester Tiger fans feel it wasn't really a fair way to decide the match, and it resting on the "failure" of one of the best players on the field for the previous 100 minutes (and in the world in his position) to execute a skill that is basically not required for him is cruel.

Apart from Jordan Crane, who is young and cocky and wasn't rubbing Williams' nose in to be fair, a lot of the Leicester players went to commiserate with Williams, kudos to them and the whole sport that this should be their first thought in the situation.

I hate people that criticise without suggesting an alternative, but this time I might just have to do that. I can think of several possible solutions and they all have swings and roundabouts.

I'd like to see a sudden-death extra time, but the pressure on the officials and on the fitness of the players would be immense. Similarly, reducing the players on the pitch to allow the game to reach a conclusion sounds exciting, but (say) 5 minutes of 7's after 100 minutes of 15-man rugby - the players today are fit, but that's insane levels of fitness required. And, of course, who knows how many cycles of extra time would be needed? You would run the players into the ground. It's in the spirit of rugby, but these days recovering for an important match the following weekend (Leicester are playing in the Premiership play-offs this Saturday after 100 minutes on Sunday, ouch my aching limbs just thinking of it!) has to be considered too.

Sudden-death overtime probably won't work then. So we're faced with some other contest. How about a different kicking contest? You can have whoever you like take the kicks - no rotating the kickers unless you want to. Start on the middle of the 22, then the 15m lines on the 22, then the 5m lines on the 22. Then, if necessary, repeat the distribution across the 10m line. Then the half-way line.

You aren't faced with Martyn Williams missing a kick he's got no business attempting at any other time - you are faced with trained, experienced goal-kickers doing their business. It continues until one makes a sufficiently serious set of mistakes to let the other side "win" the match. If they miss, it's still a big loss for the team, but teams and kickers are used to coping with that. It's not a "spirit of rugby" solution in the same way as playing some sevens would be, but it's far fairer than this foolish import for soccer - at least it's challenging a skill that those executing it have practised.

Lions choices

Yesterday's Heineken Cup semi-final made one choice for the Lions coaching staff: Stephen Jones is going to be the starting number 10. It's possibly left them with a decision too - Quinlan went, quite clearly, and gouged the Leinster captain's eyes. If he gets the ban he should for it, he won't be touring, so who will replace him?

ROG was a great fly-half. He is still a good one, but something has changed. Two years ago, if Munster or Ireland were under pressure, ROG was unflappable, and would kick the ball down the field and relieve the pressure. He hardly ever made a mistake, and if he did it was never in a critical part of the field. Yesterday, however, Leinster put the pressure on and ROG crumbled. To my mind, and recorded in this blog, he looked rather like that during the 6N too. I don't know what it is, maybe he's just old enough he's lost a step or two and so he's getting hit more, maybe he's just accumulated enough bumps that his rhythm is off, but whatever it is, that imperious control has gone. It can come - as it can for anyone - when the people around him are playing well, but when they're playing less than brilliantly he looks frail. Playing against the Boks in South Africa you know the fly half will be under pressure. He'll be under pressure to tackle, to kick, to cope with bad ball, and more and he's just not delivering. If McGeechan et al are insane enough to write his name in that slot the 6, 8, 10, 12 in green will be rubbing their hands together and hammering through that slot knowing that ROG will crumble, and if you can kill the number 10 then you stop the whole team playing at once.

Jones can have a bad day of course, but the question is more, can ROG have a good one, can he really be exposed in the hope that he'll suddenly have a good one, when the other way round it's probably less likely that Jones will have a bad one than it is that ROG will have a good one.

The actual Lions - how did I do and thoughts?

Props 2/4 - 2 more Wasps than I'd have taken! They're taking 5, but I was picking a smaller squad remember, so here and on down, I'm marking my inclusions in the squad.
Hookers 2/2 - I guess I'm surprised Rees is the 3rd hooker: Wales's line out wasn't great and that's not always the hooker, but I think it was this year, mostly.
Locks 3/4 - Shaw of Wasps over Gough.
Back row 5/6 - first real shock here, no Ryan Jones!
Half-back and centres, 8/8! - Fitzgerald in the actual squad a bit of a shocker, I think he was rather anonymous throughout the 6N.
Wings 2.5/4 - Although I mentioned Halfpenny I went against him in the end. WTF did Monye come from?
FB 1/2 - I went for Armitage who doesn't even make the squad, over Kearney, who really struggled against a big aggressive back line (Wales for example) and the Bok backs will be small and timid won't they?!

Overall: 23.5/30. 78% - pretty good really. 4 more Wasps than I'd have picked if memory serves!

Lions predictions

I should say, before I dive into this, that what I'm doing is picking essentially an A and a B squad - 2 full teams and so 30 players. I suspect the Lions squad will be bigger and have a different balance - more forwards than backs. In most places there will just be a group of players, e.g. four centres, but sometimes there will be indications of starting players and sometimes discussion of who's not there or more than one for the remaining spot. That will be where I think the choice of the player depends on the way they want to play, and Iain McGeechan is a far better coach than me!

Props:
G. Jenkins (starter)
A. Jones
D. Jones
Here the mix becomes awkward, but I'd probably take Julian White. Sheridan will be too easy for the Boks to counter, Ireland's scrum creaked too much up front. I don't remember the Scottish props which isn't a good sign!

Hookers:
Mears
Flannery

Locks:
Paul O'Connell (starter, possibly captain)
Alan Wyn Jones (starter)
Gough, Shaw, Donacha O'Callaghan are fighting for the other two places. Probably (just) Gough and DOC - Shaw doesn't offer enough extras around the pitch, and DOC and POC have a good working relationship.

Back Rows:
The Welsh and Irish 6 Nations back rows please!
Martyn Williams is the only starter from this lot.
Powell is probably an impact sub.
Possible surprises in here: Worsely might get a shout, although he's rather too similar to the Bok loose forwards to challenge them. Stephan Armitage might just get a look in - he offers something rather different.


Scrum Half:
Phillips
Leamy

Danny Care was close, but that stupid yellow card counts against him - scrum halves are too important to do that.

Fly Half:
S. Jones (starter)
Ronan O'Gara
Hook, Flood and Cipriani all miss out here, two for not enough international time, one for not being good enough. This could be a "surprise" area - if the coaches decide not to confront the Matfield-Botha axis in the line out ROG might miss out and Cipriani (who plays for Geech at Wasps after all) sneak in, although I rate both Flood and Hook ahead of him. Nicky Robinson as a real outside shout - not in the Wales mix, but running Cardiff Blues nicely in the EDF final and HEC quarter final.

Centres:
BOD (starter and MY choice for captain)
Shanklin
Roberts (Roberts really gets in on the mix and partnership with Shanklin, plus a good EDF final)
Then there's a few in mix: Flutey, but I'm not sure about his defence if the pack struggles, Horan, Tindall at a stretch. Flutey on the Wasps ticket just.

Wings:
S. Williams (starts)
Bowe (starts)
T. Evans
The fourth wing spot is between Halfpenny (also a good EDF Final), Ojo and maybe Sackey. Probably Ojo.

Ful-back:
Byrne (starter, outside shout as captain)
D. Armitage.

Breakdown by nation:

England: 5
Ireland: 10
Scotland: 1
Wales: 14

No surprise there's a lot of Irish players.

Even I'm rather surprised at the predominance of Welsh players - but Wales played essentially a second squad against Italy and played France at their brilliant best, and could have denied Ireland the Grand Slam with the last kick. England were gifted 21 points against Italy and played France at their absolute worst. Points difference tells lies sometimes in a short season! Wales finished fourth, but the depth of the squad and that narrow loss suggests they're better than they look. Simultaneously, although winning the slam is a great achievement, Ireland didn't really do it as a team, they had a few players really shine at the right moments - all of who have been picked - but the rest of their side looked like supporting actors for the stars.

That might just be justifying my pro-Welsh bias, but I don't think so.