Expect an All Blacks reaction – because defeat would mean national mourning | Nick Evans | Sport
All Blacks supporters will not even be contemplating defeat on Saturday. I have been involved in similar circumstances, when we lost to France at the 2007 World Cup when no one saw it coming, and just like back then, there would be a period of national morning and the inquest would start.
But there has been an edge to New Zealand this week. Steve Hansen’s selection is bold and while Jordie Barrett and Ngani Laumape are making their first international starts, there is a huge amount of experience around them, particularly in the pack. The Lions have a few more caps than the All Blacks but I believe that it is the type of experience that counts. This match feels like a World Cup final and the All Blacks have been in the last two and got the job done. And that gives them the edge.
While I do think Hansen has been bold with his team, Lauampe and Jordie Barrett have both played against the Lions recently so their match fitness and match awareness is probably a little bit higher than some of the others who could have played. Fingers crossed it’s dry and you’ll see the real Laumape and the real Jordie Barrett.
The tension in training is nothing new â€" every team I’ve been involved in has guys that are on the edge, especially when the pressure is on like it is now. But there’s excitement â€" guys have been playing for spots, they want to get things right. That’s what being an All Black is about, getting it right.
If you’re an All Blacks fan you want to hear that there’s some edge to them. If you were hearing they were laughing and joking around you’d wonder what was going on. But it bodes well that they have had their minds switched on to the job at hand.
They had a similar situation when they lost to Ireland in Chicago, they had the opportunity to come out and put things right. They were hugely physical in that game, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the All Blacks be that physical and they ground Ireland down. I’m not sure if they’ll approach it the same way against the Lions but we haven’t seen the shackles off New Zealand yet; we haven’t seen them really hit that top gear, in broken field with offload after offload, turning defence to attack straightaway.
The Lions have done very well defensively to shut that down but in that sense the Wellington Test was a bit of an anomaly. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s tough to get into your attacking shape when down to 14 men for so long and keep the pressure on in those conditions.
It’s very interesting because the Lions’ approach this week has been completely different. I think spending some time in Queenstown would have been in the diary for a long time. It does mix it up a bit and that is important. It would be good to go somewhere different and do something different. The beauty of Queenstown is that it’s a place for adrenaline junkies, you can get out and about.
The city is very small, you can walk everywhere, if you like golf you can do it, if you just want to have a coffee there are lots of places to do that right by the lake. It would have been a change of scenery and that is very important. Training at the same base in Auckland or Wellington â€" it can get a bit boring or a bit stale but we’ll have to wait and see if they’ve done a bit too much sight-seeing.
We’ve got to expect a huge All Blacks reaction and I’m sure there will be but it’ll come down to how the game flows. The stop-start nature of the last game suited the Lions. Whether that was because of too many penalties, the conditions, the huge amount of knock-ons which meant the number of scrums was unbelievable, a few injuries, a lot of TMO referrals â€" all of that combines to slow the game up and that does not suit the All Blacks.
I would imagine the All Blacks would want to create a game with a lot of tempo, a lot of fluidity, then get into their shape and patterns to get that connection with the backs. As for the Lions, they will try and do what they did in Wellington. If they’re kicking the ball out, they’ll kick it into row Z. They’ll try and slow it up, set-piece to set-piece and try to take the sting out of the All Blacks attack.
But it all comes down to how well the Lions defend. If they keep the All Blacks down to one try and kick their goals, they have a very good chance of winning. But as I’ve said before, they can’t do it for 50 or 60 minutes, they have to do it for 80, and they have to keep the scoreboard ticking over because I can’t imagine the ABs will defend like they did in Wellington.
Yes they were down to 14 but there were a couple of switch-offs. Many more of those and we will definitely see that inquest because losing a home series is not something the All Blacks are used to.
Fingers will be pointed, a lot of people will have to have a long hard look at where things went wrong and the public would be exactly the same. As an All Blacks fan, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
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