With the sides for the first Test announced yesterday and the intriguing selections of the backrows, it might be a good time to ponder balance in each of the backrows.
I say intriguing selections as in the case of the Lions I am very surprised that Gatland has not picked a typical Northern Hemisphere backrow.
While each and every one of the seven backrowers Gatland brought with him are fantastic players in their own right, balance was always going to be a problem in what is normally the most physically draining role on the field.
In every successful backrow you have a few key ingredients. First and foremost you need a third lineout jumper and when I say lineout jumper I mean a proper lineout jumper.
Not a part-timer but a genuine jumper, otherwise you make it simple for the defending lineout with only the two second rowers to watch.
This is why Croft gets the starting position, because he is the only genuine jumping backrower in the squad and is a specialist at the back of the lineout.
Heaslip and Warburton are part-timers but they are no match for Mowen, or Dennis or McMeniman for that matter, in either height or jump.
The Aussies are blessed in this department at the moment.
Next up you need drive through the middle. This is for the big boys only as what I’m talking about here is when you’re on the back foot and you need to scrap as many inches as you can against a defensive line that is set and moving forward at pace.
These are the players that everyone looks to when the team is on the back foot. When fit, Palu is as good as any at this and the Lions have two of the best also in O’Brien and Faletau.
These boys are often the unsung heroes of the backrow as their stats can be terrible and they don’t look good on the telly getting constantly bashed by the defence.
But these boys literally deal in inches and a few inches gained can be the difference between the opposition pack smashing into a ruck with a full head of steam or having to retreat and go through the gate.
After this you need a fetcher. I say fetcher but I believe that the game has moved away from the fetcher style in the last couple of years.
Back in the noughties four or five pilfers a game was nothing unusual for the likes of McCaw, Smith, Waugh, Brussow, etc.
In the Super Rugby this year Gill leads the stats with 11 pilfers and Rene Ranger, an outside centre, is second on eight.
Test rugby breakdowns are slower and harder fought and there will be more pilfers there than in Super Rugby, but without a doubt the pilfers are more evenly spread across the pack these days.
Opensides need to be more than just fetchers, which is why Hooper has been picked in front of Gill and Warburton in front of Tipuric.
And last of all you have the wide runners. These guys need to provide size and pace a little bit wider of the ruck than the last lot.
These guys will do a mountain of tackling and should be ready in attack to pop up in the backline to provide an overlap or a size mismatch on a back or whatever the case may be.
They need decent ball skills too because they should be able to pass when required.
The lions have plenty in this department with Croft, Lydiate and Heaslip as well as O’Brien who can play both the direct and the wide role, and is not too shabby as a fetcher.
For mine, Gatland’s selections are an admission of two things. First of all he expects an open game.
This backrow is probably the most mobile he could have picked with Croft a naturally wide player and Heaslip a brilliant runner but more renowned for his pace and sidestep in broken field than damaging runs through traffic.
It is also an admission that he expects to, or is happy to, do a lot of defending, particularly at the backend of the game.
Croft, Heaslip and Lydiate are frequently leaders of the tackle counts for their respective nations and Lydiate might be the best in the business at this role.
The Lions tight five will have a lot of work to do through the middle but without O’Brien or Faletau there will be a lot of slack to pick up.
As many people alluded to on this site yesterday, the non-selection of O’Brien is good news for Australians.
For mine he is close to the perfect backrower because he can play wide or tight and is almost impossible to move once he is over the ball.
The only reason I can see that O’Brien and Faletau have been left out is because their workrate in defence is below the others because they are head and shoulders above the rest in the close quarters stuff.
The Aussies in contrast to this have two direct runners in Palu and Mowen and will look to Hooper to stay a bit wider. Mowen can play wider but is a bit slow for the role that Heaslip and Croft normally play.
I would like to see lots of pick and drive from Mowen, and the rest of the Aussies, as I believe this is Mowen’s best asset and when timed well will be a good tactic to get the Lions rush defence on the back foot.
Another surprise in the backrow was the selection of Liam Gill on the bench. Gill deserves his place but I assumed that it would be in a 6-2 split on the bench.
Surely if there is one benefit of having so much versatility in our backline, it is that we only need two backs on the bench.
I thought this would be a given in the first Test, at least with the Wallabies not having played in three weeks.
Being able to potentially change up to six of the forwards would have given the Wallabies the ideal antidote to fatigue.
I would imagine that, barring injuries, Gill will be on the field at the same time as Hooper at some stage in this match with Palu the most likely to be given a rest.
The Wallabies tried the two-opensides thing in the noughties and for mine it never really worked.
You need the go forward from the big blokes and you can’t substitute anything for it. If it didn’t work in those loose days of the noughties I can’t see how it will work now.
McCabe seems like a luxury we can’t afford in game one and I would have taken McMeniman or Dennis as a lack of match fitness is way more likely to affect the forwards than the backs.
With these selections I think we can take more out of the way both coaches intend to finish the game than how they intend to start it.
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