‘Billy Whizz’ says Wales will light up Lions after dull England fizzle out

Former electric wing Robinson backs the tourists to win in Oz after being thrilled by exciting Welsh
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Chris Jones22 March 2013

Jason Robinson believes Wales’s destruction of England gives the Lions the chance to grab a Test series triumph over Australia.

Robinson — a player renowned for being able to light up a game — was disappointed by England’s lack of attacking spark in the Six Nations.

But the World Cup winner was thrilled by Wales’s style of play — highlighted by Saturday’s 30-3 victory — and believes the Lions will take that on board Down Under this summer.

The Lions have not won a series since the 1997 triumph over South Africa and the 2013 version will be heavily influenced by the power and pace of Wales, leaving England, Ireland and Scotland playing catch-up with the selectors.

“Wales will be the dominant partner on the tour,” said Robinson, who played in five Lions Tests. “Australia are a fantastic team and you will need smart players to take them on. We need players who can cause them problems and with England — while they only lost the Six Nations on points difference — can you imagine how good we could be if we got the attacking area right?

“Who are scoring the tries in the Premiership? It’s not the guys in the England team — it is players like Christian Wade and Tom Varndell at London Wasps.

“At the start of the Six Nations, after a run of defeats, it seemed to be going away from Wales and now all of a sudden they demolished England on the final day. The Welsh performed under pressure and that’s very important heading to Australia.

“Ireland have been poor, Scotland have provided some good stuff while England had a good start. While I don’t want to sound like one of those former players having a go, the final game really exposed where we are as a team.

“England have got worse as the Championship has progressed and what the Wales game showed is that we are struggling in the same areas where we have found problems since 2003.

“Attacking wise, England are not great to watch. We have talked about finding a No12 since Will Greenwood stopped playing and we are continuing to do that. The team that played Wales were just a steady one and it has exposed that we cannot rely on the boot of Owen Farrell.

“We cannot just aim to take three points and I have mixed feelings watching this team because my game was all about attack. Clive [Woodward] didn’t bring me over from rugby league to kick and it seems that this is still lacking.

“It takes a lot of guts as a coach to make those calls about selection and there should have been changes in the back three.”

Robinson, 38, burst onto the rugby union Test scene as a try-scoring member of the 2001 Lions in Australia having switched from league.

He won 51 caps for England, having been brought into the union game to add a spark of genius that is now so often lacking at Test level.

Robinson’s electric “Billy Whizz” counter-attacking style was one of England’s main attacking weapons during his union career but it was the team in red on Saturday that lifted the former wing’s spirits.

“We got exposed by Wales and I looked at their style of play — backs using width and also forwards — and thought, ‘I would want to be part of that’. There was a different mentality and you knew they would score more tries, ” said Robinson, at the Rosslyn Park HSBC National Schools Sevens.

“If you are a team that just waits for the opposition to give away penalties and then face a team that isn’t giving them, then what are you going to do?

“What gave me a thrill was knowing the opposition were adjusting the way they played because of what I was doing. It didn’t look like England were able to do something different. It doesn’t help when the scrum is not going right but there should still be opportunities to turn things around.

“Alex Goode has a good step, Mike Brown has good feet and not so long ago Chris Ashton was scoring tries for fun. Somebody must bring that spark.”

Robinson will be in Australia for the three-Test series and the memories of having been so close to helping the Lions triumph in 2001 — they lost 2-1, going down 29-23 in the final Test — are still strong. Despite a great career, Robinson knows that 12 years ago he had the chance to achieve something special. He added: “Losing that series is the biggest disappointment of my career. But this year I believe we can do it.”

HSBC is also Principal Partner to the 2013 British & Irish Lions Tour to Australia. Add your support for the British & Irish Lions by uploading images and messages to the HSBC Digital Lions shirt at lionsrugby.com/jointhejourney

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