Warren Gatland’s red and green force blues to surrender

 
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Dan Jones5 June 2013

The Lions’ roar had an Irish rather than a Welsh lilt to it against Western Force but the result was more or less the same as it had been in Hong Kong against the Barbarians.

Warren Gatland’s team breezed through their second warm-up game, making their limited opponents look like the scratch side with barely a few weeks’ preparation together.

Red and green dominate this Lions touring party and they broadly represent two approaches to the game of rugby that Gatland will hope to have blended by the time of the First Test on June 22.

At its simplest, the red of Wales stands for power, size and direct, down-the-middle play, embodied by the rugged, bullocking style of Mike Phillips and Jamie Roberts.

The green of Ireland has its share of grunt, too — and against a weak but spirited Western Force side today it was present most notably through Sean O’Brien and Jamie Heaslip, who combined thunderously in the back row, making juddering yards and in Heaslip’s case, bagging a try for his reward.

But the Irish also have an abundance of subtlety and sleight and it is this that Gatland took a look at today, with eight Irishmen in the starting XV.

Brian O’Driscoll, Tommy Bowe and Jonathan Sexton all started and all of them looked agreeably crafty.

Bowe made the first line-break of the match, coming off his wing to show and go after three minutes, foreshadowing of his 58th-minute try, when he wiggled over in the right corner. Next, Sexton found a crack in the Force defence, sidled smartly through it and darted under the posts to score.

Then, later in the first half, it was the captain O’Driscoll’s turn: his beautifully precise first try (of two in the match) came from a neat combination of passes with George North on the left wing, a canny switch of the ball from left hand to right and a laser-guided dive for the corner. Peachy.

As the scoreline — 69-17 — suggests, Western Force were not exactly forceful opponents. Sir Ian McGeechan, wearing his TV pundit’s hat, suggested before kick-off that the weakness of their selection was actually “disrespectful” to the Lions. All the same, the woefully undermanned side scored a couple of tries, committed to running the ball, and only fell apart after 60 minutes, when their gas gave out.

They desperately lacked quality but not heart. This was not quite a training run for the tourists, with the exception of the astonishing Leigh Halfpenny (above), who nailed each of the 11 kicks he took at goal, including plenty from either touchline. His name must already be inked onto the Test teamsheet.

Cian Healy’s injury apart, it was a steady rumble onwards. Gatland’s men are assembling a side with power as well as guile. Now all they need is a decent team to test themselves against.

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