All the talk is coming to an end. The anticipation is building and the red hordes will soon be at the Eden Park gates.
On Saturday, Warren Gatland will attempt to end 23 years of All Blacks domination at the famous old Auckland ground.
Gatland has summoned the best of England, Ireland and Wales [with a few Scots thrown in for good measure] and run them through countless drills and tactical sessions over the past four weeks. The British & Irish Lions squad have shown they have a fearsome defence. They’ve shown they are starting to click in attack.
They have several world-class players and six of the matchday squad [three English and three Irish] know what it is like to conquer a New Zealand team. Their lineout looks strong and their scrum have the potential to do damage. They have a mighty bench.
Those are the positives but the fact remains that this squad met up for the first time – as 41 players – on May 28.
They are also up against an All Blacks team that won the World Cup in 2011 and haven’t let it go since. One glance at their matchday 23 and a shiver shimmies down the spine. Without listing out 23 absolute stars, we’ll just say this – Julian Savea, Waiseke Naholo and Nehe Milner-Skudder all missed out.
The odds on a First Test winner have fluctuated since the start of the tour – week one lows and Crusader highs – but you can currently get New Zealand at 1/4 and the Lions at 7/2.
The first tryscorer chart is littered with All Blacks, with wingers Rieko Ioane, Israel Dagg, Ben Smith and Beauden Barrett in the top four before Lions winger Elliot Daly showing up at 16/1.
Conor Murray is at 22/1 to get the first Lions try. Considering three of Murray’s 10 Test tries have been against the ABs, that is certainly a tempter.
Hayley O’Connor of Ladbrokes spoke on The Hard Yards rugby podcast [from 44:40 below] about some of the more interesting bets on offer for the First Test.
Lions inclusions of Peter O’Mahony, as captain, and a back three of Anthony Watson, Liam Williams and Elliot Daly have reinvigorated many punters. O’Connor commented:
“If you want to back the Lions at +5, you can back them at 13/8 but if you think New Zealand are going to walk all over us, you can get -20 at 9/4.”
Added to that, the general over/under spread for the game is 11 points in New Zealand’s favour.
Thrown into that mix is a local weather forecast of persistent rain for the days before and of the First Test.
As if we didn’t know it already, this one is going to be hella tough.
But enough of the worries. If you are not going to embrace optimism before you play the All Blacks there may be little opportunity to do so during or after.
Memories of Chicago and Soldier Field are fresh in the mind. The Lions are coming to the boil nicely, Owen Farrell and Conor Murray have the potential to be a truly world-class half back pairing, Tadhg ‘jukebox’ Furlong keeps banging out the hits and Sean O’Brien looks bloody well fired up for that.
Added to that, the Lions haven’t lost a Test Series since 2009.
Granted, they have only completed one Test Series since then but we’ll take what we can get…
