Just like the Aussies were sweating on the James Horwill judiciary decision from the IRB, Lions fans will be sweating on Warren Gatland’s selections for the final Test.
While Robbie Deans is unlikely to make any changes to his now settled squad, Gatland is likely to make additional changes to the one injury-forced change of Sam Warburton.
After a largely anonymous game at the breakdown in Brisbane, Warburton played himself back into form by dominating in Melbourne with several steals and penalties won and his hamstring injury is a massive blow to the tourists.
We’ll have to wait until Thursday to see whether Gatland picks Justin Tipuric, another fetcher and hero for Wales in this years Six Nations, or Sean O’Brien, who can play anywhere in the back row and has a history of playing well against Australia.
You’d have to say that the big head scratcher of selections on this tour has been O’Brien. He is a damaging ball-runner and virtually impossible to move once over the ball, yet he has been limited to 18 minutes so far, only coming on once Warburton was forced to go off.
Both he and Toby Faletau are the Lions best ballrunners in the backrow and neither have got a look in so far as Gatland tries to tackle his way to a series victory.
With Jamie Roberts supposedly ready to train by Wednesday, it seems likely that Gatland will revert back to ‘Warrenball’, his favoured gameplan of using the huge Welshman to hit the ball up through the 12 channel.
With Mike Phillips and Alex Corbisiero also fit again, Lions fans will be nervously waiting to see what other changes are made and whether Gatland intends to actually play some rugby this week.
It surely is now essential that Gatland chance his arm this weekend and get the ball in George North’s hands, as only poor goalkicking from the Wallabies in Brisbane has kept his side in it.
The choice of halfback will be an indication of what Gatland intends to do. If he goes with Phillips then we can expect a typical Warrenball assault and the same result as the last eight times he’s tried to play Warrenball against the Aussies.
Or, if he goes with Youngs or, even better, Murray, whose combination with Sexton has been completely ignored this series, and tries to achieve some variation and width, then the Lions have a chance of winning.
The biggest disappointment of the weekend from the wallabies’ perspective was the breakdown.
From Warburton’s first penalty steal in the opening minutes it was evident that the Wallabies had not tempered their gameplan for the referee.
It’s no secret that Marius Joubert allows the contest to play out at the breakdown and the Wallabies still didn’t commit enough numbers early in the game, something they have been guilty of before with Joubert and goes some way to explaining our poor record with him in the middle.
Committing low numbers worked in Brisbane and allowed the Wallabies to retain possession fairly easily, but the Lions were ready for the change in Melbourne while it took the Wallabies 40 minutes to work it out.
It would be unfair to single anyone out for individual mistakes, as even our two most dependable, Horwill and Genia, allowed the occasion to get to them a bit and were guilty of silly mistakes.
The Wallabies played badly individually but well as a team and got the job done despite the nerves, earning themselves a reprieve for this week.
There has been a lot of dropped ball from the Wallabies tight five this series with Kane Douglas the guiltiest in Melbourne with two spills from two carries, and for this reason I would start with Rob Simmons and bring Douglas on later.
While Douglas is generally much more capable and dynamic with ball in hand, Simmons ideally shouldn’t be bogged down with ball-running responsibilities and just have the very simple task of hitting as many rucks as possible, which he does extremely well.
At the moment Simmons is coming on late and expected to do some ballrunning to give the tiring pack a bit of help in that area and not doing it particularly well, whereas a fresh Douglas coming on at the 55-minute mark would be more of an asset against a fatiguing defence.
Think of it like Simmons is David Giffin and Douglas is Mark Connors circa ‘99.
The only time you ever heard Giffin’s name during the match was in the lineout, yet he was one of the first picked every Test in that era simply because he put his head down and hit ruck after ruck unburdened by the possibility that he should maybe stay out of this ruck in case they needed a runner for the next phase.
Then at the 60-minute mark Connors would come on and provide an extra ball-running element that would take some pressure off the forwards.
While many Wallabies struggled individually last week, one who was almost flawless was Adam Ashley-Cooper, about who nothing needs to be said except that he is right up there with Mortlock as out best ever 13’s in the professional era.
I say almost flawless because he did miss one tackle.
One thing that would have encouraged the advocates of Warrenball was the sight of Christian Lealiifano clinging on to bootlaces as Lions runners dragged him over the advantage line.
While Lealiifano is normally a good defender, his technique hasn’t been brilliant so far this series and that is what Warrenball is all about.
He and Ashley-Cooper need to be ruthless in that channel and stop the Lions in their tracks otherwise it will be a tough night for the Wallabies.
Robbie Deans will not hesitate in getting Horne onto the field at some stage if the Lions are dominant in this area, because he has been the Wallabies best at dealing with Jamie Roberts.
Although Horne misses a few tackles with his rush technique, he rarely misses the straight-runners like Roberts and he and McCabe in the midfield have been one of the keys to the Wallabies eight-straight victories over the Welsh.
While defending Warrenball is definitely a team effort, Lealiifano, O’Connor and Hooper are going to be the ones to cop the blame as that is the direction he will be headed most of the time and those three are the ones with question marks over their defence.
The Wallabies will definitely take comfort from the fact that they kicked in general play very well last week.
Two things that the Wallabies have been guilty of in recent times is kicking quality possession away and poor clearing kicks that don’t find touch or find touch without gaining much distance.
They didn’t do much of either last week, choosing to run the ball back, tire the Lions out, and then score points at the end of the game, which eventually paid off.
In 2001 the final quarter points tally after the three tests stood at 27-0 to the Wallabies which at the time was a fair reflection of the size to mobility ratio of the Lions and Wallabies packs.
This Lions side is much more mobile than the last touring side but as we’ve seen they can’t match it with the Wallabies at the death even now with the new rules allowing teams to replace both props.
The final quarter points-tally for the series currently lies at 13-6 to the Wallabies but this doesn’t reflect the Wallabies’ dominance at the back end of both tests.
Poor goalkicking in Brisbane and Basic Handling errors in Melbourne have flattered the Lions in the final quarter, but with the goalkicking now sorted and hopefully the nerves more settled this week, the Wallabies should be backing themselves to have more in the tank by the end in Sydney.
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