Stuart Barnes

Ymddiheuriadau am y Saesneg ('to), ond roedd yn rhaid i fi bostio hyn i gyd. Gwych. Cytuno â phob gair...

'Unless Woodward moves away from English attrition, he could prove to be the worst Lions boss since God knows when'

Stuart Barnes in Christchurch

The Lions coach's tactics were negative and his team paid the price for his reluctance to select key Welsh players

It was a dire night for British and Irish rugby fans, but a great one for lovers of the game. Sir Clive Woodward’s rugby philosophy is basic and it is brutal. It doesn’t matter how you win a Test match, as long as you win. That was the basic premise of his assertions in the run-up to his team’s plodding performance yesterday.

He apparently takes great pride in this anti-hero role that he has espoused in the past few years of his coaching career. His first instinct is the conservative, the negative; how to nullify rather than how to create. And in Christchurch the barren nature of his belief brought the British & Irish Lions crashing down to earth. In weather that was tailor-made for his sterile tactical plan, New Zealand dismissed his robotic assembly of players with ease.

The headlines will deal with the spear tackle on Brian O’Driscoll in the first minute and the dreadful problems at the lineout. Both, undoubtedly, worsened the Lions’ plight. But the picture behind the loss is bigger — much bigger. This was a clash of rugby cultures. Do you attempt to strangle a team through attrition, or do you try to open the field up with dynamism? Purists who care for the game should celebrate the fact that New Zealand are turning the tide against the bully boys, the big bruisers.

It was not the Blacks’ backs who won the game, but the tight five, the area the Lions believed they could dominate.

Graham Henry was effusive in his praise for the engine of the team. “The tight five of the All Blacks outplayed the Lions’ tight five tonight,” the New Zealand coach said. “That was the basis of the win. They were dominant around the field and that enabled the back row to function and gave a platform for the backs.”

But it wasn’t simply a case of the Lions being beaten by a physically and technically superior unit. The real problem is the deeper-lying cultural one. New Zealanders want their forwards to be dynamic, to motor around the park as well as grunt in the scrums or jump at the lineout. They are expected to hit rucks hard and to move opponents. In other words, they are regarded primarily as creative players, like the backs.

Woodward and his coaches pay only lip service to this mantra. How else to explain the selection of Ben Kay and a back row of ponderous propensities? Kay was picked to do nothing but win lineout ball, the back row to do nothing but negate the New Zealand attack. In terms of creativity, nothing was expected. Thankfully for the sake of the game, the team with ambition triumphed — and with such ease that the Lions and those people who think sterility will always prevail against creativity are going to have to think again and think fast.

From day one of this tour, Woodward dreamed of winning a series by stopping New Zealand and kicking a few penalties and goals, with maybe a moment or two of individual magic thrown in to make the difference. His dreams are the stuff of neutrals’ nightmares. It was no coincidence that the one Lions forward who took the fight to New Zealand with their brand of power and pace was Welshman, Ryan Jones. And remember, this was a man not even considered good enough to be a first replacement for the initial group of back-row forwards. Jones was superb during the Six Nations, but the Lions management did not think he was the right sort of player. Maybe he just doesn’t have the right technique when it comes to flopping over the ball and slowing it down? Maybe his raw belligerence and athleticism lacks the sophistication of natural born ball-killers.

The Ospreys forward’s stunning performance against Otago gave Woodward a chance to reassess the balance of the back row, but no, the culture of negativity allowed him no more than a place on the bench.

Wayne Smith, the All Blacks’ backs coach, was impressed with Jones, but not surprised. “He played well, didn’t he? I am not surprised,” said Smith. “He came out of a team that plays like that.”

The reference was to Wales, and there is no doubt that the positive Welsh approach to the game, one begun by Steve Hansen, now part of the All Blacks coaching team, and refined by Mike Ruddock, was one New Zealand are glad not to be facing once more.

“We (New Zealand) found Wales difficult on tour,” Smith added. “They were sophisticated in attack, right across the park.”

The implication was clear enough. The Lions were anything but threatening. And it was not, no matter what the management said, simply a matter of insufficient ball.

The Lions’ obsession with grinding attrition is at the expense of skill. The gifted instinctive skills of, say, Shane Williams or Gavin Henson are not trusted by Woodward; the only selection risks he takes are to choose off-form Englishmen who once strangled the All Blacks on a wild and wet night in Wellington. In many ways it is a relief that the gamble failed. Rugby does not need Woodward’s way prevailing. It needs the belief in skill and attack to triumph.

In conditions not suited to the All Blacks, the home team made a fist of running rugby, against the elemental odds.

“It is difficult to play constructive rugby in these elements,” said Henry, pausing before adding, “unless you’re hugely skilful.” Another mischievous pause. “And they struggled.” Too right, Graham.

The Super 12 knockers are going to be forced into a reassessment of the approach to Test-match rugby. It is true that the game is too loose, but at least the ease with which attacking teams keep the ball means sides and individuals become used to playing at pace.

In contrast, most of Europe’s club rugby is a compelling case of trudging, defensive-based stuff.

Yesterday showed that of the two extremes, it is the positive and not the negative that can flourish when tempered. The coaching philosophy is being shifted into overdrive by a New Zealand team that is attractive to the neutrals. I defy anybody to deny the sheer beauty of Sitiveni Sivivatu’s try. Even with O’Driscoll, it is hard to imagine this Lions squad forging a thing of such magnificence. Now that he is off the tour, it is nigh on impossible.

What frustrates so much is the fact that the evidence of the sea change has been in front of the eyes of the Lions management all year.

The Wales Grand Slam has been dismissed as a fluke in a bad English year and too many of their players have been disregarded on this tour.

Woodward has been quick to praise them, but slow to pick them. After the Otago game he went so far as to say, “Now I understand why these guys won the Grand Slam.” Then he opted for four Welshmen and eight Englishmen in his starting XV.

Woodward’s achievements cannot be lightly dismissed. I still believe that he, more than any player, was the central reason behind England’s World Cup triumph. However, unless he finds the flexibility to move away from English attrition (which is more myth than reality without the retired Martin Johnson and the injured Lawrence Dallaglio), England’s greatest sporting manager since Sir Alf Ramsey could prove to be the Lions’ worst boss since God knows when.

He has been given the money and the resources to make this the best-prepared Lions tour of them all — and the organisation is superbly professional off the pitch. It is just that on it, they are playing in a time warp. Woodward has a week to look west of the Severn for the way at least to compete with New Zealand in Wellington next Saturday. You will have heard the admission of lineout problems. You will read quotes of Woodward and his management talking of “copping it and moving on” and the Lions have brewed up a citation for All Blacks skipper Tana Umaga and hooker Keven Mealamu for their spear tackle that ended the captain’s tour.

Great news headlines, but all designed to mask the basic flaws of the Lions and their negative approach to the opening Test. Once again, the professionalism of the Lions’ most professional tour is coming to the fore. It is New Labour reinvented as rugby union. Let us hope that in sport, unlike politics, the truth will out.

Let us hope so, for Woodward’s sake. A favourite phrase of his — bar “copping it and moving on” — is to look in the mirror. He needs to see that the monster he is intent on keeping alive is no longer scaring the rest of the world.