Lions' coaches have cause to regret lost opportunities

There was a very fine line between success and failure in South Africa and the Lions management will inevitably question some of their own key decisions

IAN McGEECHAN reasserted his belief on Sunday morning that he wouldn’t change a thing, not least in the Lions’ management selections. Well, perhaps he would say that, wouldn’t he? In the warmer glow of the summer holidays, and in private, one wonders however whether the Lions’ coaches won’t have regrets about several of their starting selections for the first Test, along with their selection of their replacements for the second and the employment of the benches in both the first and second Tests.

Hindsight is 20-20 vision, of course, but it’s not being wise after the event to question whether a pack containing Lee Mears, Alun Wyn-Jones and Tom Croft would have enough grunt and grind to compete with the Springboks’ pack in the first Test.

The ultimate indictment of that selection came when the Lions pack was shunted back the best part of 60 metres in three successive lineout drives over their own line.

There were, it is true, also issues concerning their high body positioning and committing fringe forwards to the defence of the maul as the Boks supplemented their drive with Bryan Habana and Jean de Villiers. The Lions rectified these problems but McGeechan, Graham Rowntree and Warren Gatland must be wondering whether the pack which started last Saturday in Loftus Versfeld would have been driven back so remorselessly.

They are all good men and good coaches, who in general have done an excellent job in so many ways. The commitment, unity and sheer will of the squad has been brilliantly fostered in a relatively short period of time. They’ve also developed a clear, well-coached pattern of multi-phase rugby and some of the backline moves have been excellent. Take a bow Rob Howley.

Rowntree honestly held up his hand as scrum coach for the first Test dissection which yielded six points in penalties and an unquantifiable ripple effect. He also had no regrets about not making changes sooner, but again he must surely be questioning the decision not to replace Phil Vickery with Adam Jones sooner.

Jones has probably been the most improved player of the squad on tour, and without any other changes he steadied the first scrum he packed down for in Durban. It transpires the Boks were privately hoping the Lions would start with Vickery, given the memory of how they targeted him in the World Cup final. Here again you don’t need hindsight to suggest there was an argument for replacing Vickery with Jones from about the 15th minute onwards.

After all, replacing a frontrower is the one area of the team where a replaced player can return in the event of injury.

Ugo Monye’s selection ahead of Luke Fitzgerald was also debatable but, in any event, the three changes to the tight five for the second Test were a tacit admission that the selection for Durban had been flawed. The replacements’ bench, however, contained too many specialists, not least in Ronan O’Gara and Shane Williams.

Parochialism perhaps blinded some of us to O’Gara being preferred over the more versatile James Hook, but the many who did raise questions can now feel vindicated, while Williams was almost literally, a wing and a prayer job, especially when there was also the versatility of either Gordon D’Arcy or Keith Earls to call upon.

The Lions were given few favours by the scheduling and altitude definitely took its toll. They were also desperately unlucky with injuries, but had Hook and/or a more versatile back-five replacement been on the bench, the reshuffling needn’t have been so dramatic. O’Gara’s defensive deficiencies, more technical and physical than a case of mental courage, were compounded by him defending in midfield and being groggy from Pierre Spies running hard at him.

Might the Lions management also be wondering whether they should have moved David Wallace over to blindside when bringing on Martyn Williams given Croft was missing tackles? In the heel of the hunt, the combined eight-point winning margin over the two Tests might conceivably have been overcome by these selection issues.

The feeling of regret will be compounded by the knowledge that Pieter de Villiers’ selections and use of his bench in both Tests opened a window of opportunity.

In trying, difficult circumstances, the officials have had good games overall but, once again, the Lions will feel aggrieved over some of the officials’ decisions last Saturday. Aside from the leniency shown to Schalk Burger, it transpires too that touchjudge Bryce Lawrence was the only one who could have called whether Jaque Fourie did or didn’t make contact with the touchline in scoring his critical 75th-minute try. The only camera angle which could have verified whether it was a legitimate try or not was focused too closely to tell, in which case TMO Stu Dickinson should have admitted as much. Mind you, that key question was never properly asked of Dickinson.

In general too, referees and touchjudges are becoming far too tolerant of an increasing amount of off-the-ball nonsense, whether it’s questioning of the officials’ decisions, patting opponents on the head after they’ve knocked on or given away a penalty, or provocatively shoving an opponent after the whistle and sledging. We even had the lamentable sight of John Smit signalling a yellow card toward referee Christophe Berdos for Simon Shaw for a high tackle.

Undoubtedly Lawrence should have recommended a red card for Burger, and the penalty against Brian O’Driscoll for his off-the-ball altercation with Victor Matfield was wrong because the latter began it with an utterly unwarranted shove in the back. Viewed in the context of all the nastiness over the last two games, Dickinson’s intervention to have Lawrence impose a reversed penalty against Matthew Rees in front of the Boks’ posts late on in the first Test was laughable.

Rugby has always been fortunate, and revelled, in its sporting image when compared to other sports such as football, primarily because of the referee’s power to impose additional 10-metre sanctions or reverse penalties. In recent years the game has become harder to control but referees could make it easier for themselves by reasserting these twin powers.

gthornley@irishtimes.com