One of the disappointments of the first Lions Test showing was the lack of impact the back row made on slowing down the All Black attack.
The home side ran for 559 metres and dominated both territory and possession, along with recording higher figures for defenders beaten and offloads. It was an onslaught which could’ve ended with a much worse deficit for the tourists had they not been able to claw back a try at the end.
The individual stats weren’t much better, Taulupe Faletau led the team in tackles, with 21, but Sean O’Brien made the seventh most tackles of the starting forwards, trailing only Tadhg Furlong, and Peter O’Mahony trailed Faletau by eight tackles and Jamie George by seven.
They weren’t much better in attack either, O’Brien managed 37 metres but Faletau and O’Mahony managed just 15 between them, worse than all but Owen Farrell and Ben Te’o from the backs. O’Mahony had just two carries, no other starter had fewer, and only Ken Owens and Maro Itoje had fewer from the bench.
So, what changed in the second test? The All Blacks were limited to 224 metres fewer than the previous week, they had 77 fewer runs and kicked four times more despite passing 113 times less. We’ll have a look at what happened and what might happen this weekend.
There was more grit and intelligence in Wellington. In the above clip, O’Brien clings on in the tackle and then falls on the All Blacks side. He rolls quick enough to not give away the penalty and then Sam Warburton comes in from nowhere to further interfere with the speed of play.
Once again, O’Brien is involved in this tackle. Faletau and the flanker team up to hold up play and then the Irishman is focused on falling on the attacking side of the ball to slow the ball down just enough to give his team mates a couple of seconds extra to get into position.
There was a constant hunger to get beyond the ball and into the space that the All Blacks would like clear to get quick ball. Here Warburton clambers through and takes up that space. Again, he’s alert to what the referee wants and doesn’t linger for too long.
Playing right to the edges of legality doesn’t just happen at the breakdown, the Lions were also aware of the possibilities at the maul. In the above clip, Faletau comes straight in from the side and gets the momentum moving sideways. He plays sensibly though, as soon as Jerome Garces tells him to move he gets out of there, looking proactive and preventing the penalty.
Faletau joins again from the back, and Itoje has swum through the middle. The momentum has stopped, partly due to Faletau’s earlier activities, and once it goes to ground it’s turnover Lions. The All Blacks lost one of their three mauls after being unstoppable last week.
The back row were leaned upon heavily in the kicking game. Faletau was regularly the first person to get to the spot of the ball from restarts. In the above clip he takes his opposite number, Kieran Read, down and again gets on the other side to slow the subsequent ball down.
Because of where Faletau stands to receive kick offs, to the kickers right and just inside the 22 he knows he’ll receive plenty of kicks in his direction. He benefits from having the cover of the lifting pod in front of him but he does a fantastic job, as in the above clip, he can consistently be relied upon to grab some forward momentum in this particular part of the game.
The trio combined for three metres fewer than last week, but in a much lower yardage game, these were hard fought yards which turned the game in the Lions’ favour. In the above example, Faletau could put his head down and crash into the defence, but he spots that there’s a weakness in front of Furlong and moves the ball to the prop. He then latchets on the back of him and turns what could be a loss into around a 10 metre gain.
O’Brien can be relied upon to batter at the opposition’s door and he did exactly that in the second test. I saw the Leinster man during a rehab game against Richmond earlier in the season and he was dominant during the half he played, running the length of the field at least twice. He’s obviously not going to look as dominant here, but he put his head down on every play and gained consistent chunks of yardage, which allowed the Lions to keep chipping away rather than lean on home run plays as they did last week.
He consistently crashed into the line and the All Blacks were unable to halt him from gaining ground. Even when they were able to stop him breaking free, they couldn’t stop him moving the gain line forwards.
That level of effort didn’t stop, even when the Lions were into the 80th minute and looking to hold onto the ball and victory. This effort level was replicated across the entire back row.
Another example of this point is in the clip above, Faletau goes from virtually one side of the pitch to the other to hunt down Israel Dagg. He does have defensive support but he also has the legs to get across and shut down this counter attack.
In this final section, we’ll look at some interesting other novelties which were visible in the game.
The Lions took a number of lineouts with O’Brien at the traditional scrum-half spot and Conor Murray at the front of the lineout. When Murray peels off he moves to the collect the ball and O’Brien shifts out to become the first receiver. By doing this, O’Brien is able to get moving much quicker than he would if he had to line up 10 metres back.
A variation of that can be seen in this clip where O’Brien is in the same position but joins the lineout late, depending on what was said to the referee, this is probably not legal – you can’t add another player into a lineout once you’ve confirmed the numbers. However, what it does do is set a deeper pod for the Lions to pivot around and attack a weak spot.
Away from the lineout and, as much stick as Rob Howley has taken, the use of Faletau out wide has been inspired. It’s not a new strategy, a lot of teams are now using fast forwards on wings to support wide play and create mismatches. In the above play, but for a different bounce, Faletau would’ve been marauding down the wing and in for his first try.
He did score his try though from exactly the same position. He hangs way out on the wing and that stretches the narrow All Blacks defence. For anyone who plays in one of the touch leagues across the UK, this is what the best teams do. They stretch the field as far as it will go and either create space in the middle or, as in this example, out wide. The athletic number eight is then able to take care of the overlap much like a winger would.
Conclusion
There’s an elephant in the room here – the Lions were playing against just two Kiwi back rows once Sonny Bill Williams had been sent off and Jerome Kaino was subbed off to create a full backline. That won’t be the case next week and so the Lions will have to continue their upward back row improvement. Faletau and O’Brien seem to be guaranteed a starting spot, baring injury, so whoever fills out the back row will be tasked with the goal of playing flat out and preventing the All Blacks from getting quick ball. It’s very simple, all these three players need to do is succeed in getting quick ball and preventing the same for the opposition, this bizarre tour might have an even more unfathomable finish. It’s much easier said than done however.
