This wasn’t make or break, but beating what amounts to the leading non-test side in the world and in the process inflicting on the Crusaders their first defeat of the year re-launched the Lions tour in New Zealand, and Warren Gatland effectively admitted as much.
Asked how important this 12-3 win was in the context of the tour, the Lions head coach simply said: “Very.”
Following on from their scratchy win over the Provincial Barbarians and defeat to the Blues, the Lions had been predictably pilloried and rubbished in much of the New Zealand media, and Gatland admitted it hadn’t been an easy week.
“It’s been a tough week. It’s been very tough this week. There’s been a lot of criticism and people have written the tour off already after two games. That’s been challenging, it’s been challenging for all of us. We need to stay strong in the group and keep the faith. The goal is the Test matches and to keep improving for that. I hope we didn’t disappoint any people tonight with the result.”
Winning, he said, was paramount.
“The most important thing was the result. We felt we have improved over the three games. We knew we started off pretty rusty having been in New Zealand only 72 hours. Thought we improved against the Blues, got ourselves in front but unfortunately conceded a try with six or seven minutes to go through a bit of Blues’ magic which happens.
“Tonight was another step up but there is still a lot to work on.”
The Crusaders have been averaging 37 points in accruing 14 wins from 14 in Super Rugby this season, which made restricting them to just three points a mighty fine achievement.
“We felt that in some aspects of last Wednesday we had improved. We knew the threat of New Zealand sides is their ability to offload, and I thought some of our line speed in defence tonight was excellent. We made them go quite narrow sometimes, and that’s just time together. We feel that as a squad we’re a bit like a club team thrown together in pre-season, and you’ve got to get a couple of games under your belt. The more time on the training paddock and the more games together the better you’ll get, and it’s definitely felt like that.
“This team that played tonight, I thought they trained outstandingly yesterday. They looked sharp and I knew there would be a better performance again, because they just had that time together as a team, and a bit more time to get together. There are still lots of things for us to work on, but the result was pretty important for us.”
One of the other positive spin-offs for Gatland and the Lions coaching staff was the number of individuals who showcased their credentials for test selection.
"Yeah, there were a lot. I thought our loose forwards were good. I thought our line-out was excellent. One of the most pleasing aspects was that we had to have two changes due to HIAs, in terms of Stuart Hogg and Jonathan Davies.
“Look, they should be pleased with that, in terms of reshuffling the combinations. Owen [Farrell] definitely had a good game but for me the most pleasing thing from his game was his kicks to touch and his touch-finding, that put them under a lot of pressure, the length of those kicks to touch.
We showed some composure. I thought the impact from the guys off the bench gave us energy and momentum which is crucial at this level. There were some strong performances by a number of players. But the games come around pretty quickly, Highlanders on Tuesday and the Maori All Blacks next week. We said all along that the quality of the opposition – as long as you don’t get that many injuries and we’ve been lucky touch wood – is great preparation for us as we prepare to play the best team in the world which is the All Blacks in a few weeks’ time.”
Of Farrell he said: "It was a pretty good performance. There are a couple of things . . . I thought the kick went over so I'd like to see the replay on that and maybe why he didn't go to the TMO to confirm that but it was a good performance. I thought Johnny Sexton did well when he came on and we talked about looking at that 10-12 combination and given the experience of both of those two players they were able to cope with that and we hadn't worked on that in training at all.
"Having to move Ben to 13 and Anthony to 15, they should be pleased with that in terms of reshuffling and the combinations. Owen definitely had a good game, but for me the most pleasing bit of his game were his kicks to touch and touch finding which put them under pressure.”
