In the first minutes from Lions to play Queensland Reds in Brisbane, Maro Itoze gathered his players together in the dressing room and appealed to their internal grunt.
The captain created a point about hard work and playing direct rugby. “Get us through the front door,” they demanded their team. “Forward – Set tone with our materiality.”
And this is the ongoing confusion with these lions. They have all the artillery that they need to explode through the courage of any team in Australia, but they have not almost often enough.
Head coach Andy Fareel regularly stated that the lions are completely in their best while driving in the heart of the opposition and then, when they beat them, play from there. It is like that old line about the first step of making chicken soup – hold a chicken.
And yet against Warratah they were still taking the ball out of the backline, without hard yards. They should be better than this. They are better than this.
Last month, Etoze addressed some side-to-side items, which gave the lions given by Argentina to the lions and called it a “tip-up”. And it is still a little tippy-tappy.
Now that the test series looks on the horizon, they are probably about to take off. Maybe the time is now when the hound of hell is removed and the gameplan turns into a more balanced and more combative version that we have seen so far.
Prior to the Bumbiz game, Etoze was asked if more direct rugby offings. “This is definitely ambition,” he replied.
“Ragby does not change much, whether it is under -14S rugby or Lions. You have to move forward. You have to earn the right – the famous proverb – to go wide. And of course there is a matter for us. We need to punch holes, move forward, then open the space where it can happen.”
Do they think they have been very latent in their attack on this tour?
“Many times, perhaps. Many times we have been very good in playing and playing directly through teams. But sometimes we walk widely before earning the right.”
And being widened before earning the right to go extensively, so they ran into so much trouble against Warratah, who were waiting for them. The amount of handling errors from exceptionally talented players was crazy – not quite self -proclaim, but a little closer to comfort.
