I was quietly encouraged by yesterday’s comprehensive win by the British & Irish Lions over the Barbarians in Hong Kong.
We mustn’t get too carried away as they will face far tougher tests once they get to Australia even if they might not ever face such atmospheric conditions again but it was a case of ticking all the boxes and making sure it was a job well done.
There may have been a few murmurs of favouritism when Warren Gatland picked several Welsh players in his squad but yesterday showed some of the quality which the men who (nearly) always play in red possess. In particular, the 9-12-13 axis provided the Lions with real coherence behind the pack. The experience of playing alongside each other really showed and that must be a huge boost for the whole squad.
Mike Phillips and Jamie Roberts carried on from where they left off four years ago in South Africa, Justin Tipuric and Adam Jones were superb up front and Jonathan Davies capped a solid performance with an opportunistic try. Dan Lydiate, Alun Wyn-Jones and Alex Cuthbert also got on the scoresheet.
But who else impressed? Richie Gray had a strong first half, Stuart Hogg showed plenty of enterprise and Conor Murray looked sharper than he ever has in an Ireland shirt when he came on to replace Phillips.
There was one glaring area of concern, however. It didn’t take long for Owen Farrell’s temperament to be called into question and while Schalk Brits shouldn’t have landed one on him, Farrell’s retaliation was also unwise. Gatland said as much afterwards and a public dressing-down could be exactly what is needed to pull him into line. You can be sure that his senior colleagues will have had a word as well.
Although Farrell kicked from the tee well enough (and far better than Jonny Sexton later in the game), he mixed the excellent (good up and unders, a couple of line breaks) with the very poor (one aimless kick into the middle and two charge downs).
No wonder this morning’s news is full of stories about Jonny Wilkinson’s availability to be added to the Lions squad. Cool heads are needed and Farrell doesn’t seem to have enough of one yet.
We saw the consequences of a fly-half making a rash decision in a key match in 2009, when Ronan O’Gara gave away a stupid penalty late in the second Test, the conversion of which won South Africa the series.
Gatland and co. will be keen to make sure that that particular piece of Lions history does not repeat itself. The ball is now in Farrell’s 22.