THE selections are close to what was speculated but each side has named a couple of surprise inclusions in the starting 15 for the first Test Saturday at Eden Park, a fortress for the All Blacks dating back to 1994 and 37 Tests.
Apart from the much hoped for return from injury of No. 8 and captain Kieran Read and centre Ryan Crotty, All Blacks head coach Steve Hansen has decided to give 20-year-old winger Rieko Ioane a first start in only his third Test, a decision which leaves senior wing Julian Savea out of the match-day 23.
Ioane has been in good form all season for the Blues in Super Rugby and carried this into the team’s victory over the Lions in the second game of this tour. He becomes the youngest to start a Test for the All Blacks in 12 years.
While a welcomed decision for the home supporters, the downside with Read is that he hasn’t had any game time since having surgery on an injured thumb in late April.
Playing Crotty to partner Sonny Bill Williams in the midfield means having a more experienced pair, although Williams had a good game partnering Anton Lienert-Brown against Samoa. Lienert-Brown is on the bench for Saturday.
Although the two finished strongly in that game, there was concern over the holes in defence earlier on, with the combination being tried for the first time.
The selections mean that both teams start with 13 from the 15 that started the games against Samoa and the Maori All Blacks last week respectively, the latter a surprisingly comfortably 32-10 win for the Lions.
For the Lions, the surprise inclusions are those of Welshman Liam Williams, a winger called up to play fullback, and Elliot Daly on the wing. Williams’ selection pushes regular fullback and Wales’ team-mate Leigh Halfpenny to the bench.
As has been speculated from a few weeks ago, tour captain Sam Warburton is named on the bench.
The Lions, both their mid-week and Saturday selections, have shown much improvement as the tour progressed, especially in defence and work at the breakdown.
While their rugby doesn’t provide the same excitement that comes from the southern hemisphere’s expansive style, it has been effective in choking their opponent’s game, as was what happened to the Crusaders, Maori All Blacks and last Tuesday, the under-strength Chiefs.
A notable failure of the three losing home teams was to better deal with the rush defence and this put them under a lot of pressure that forced their pivots to kick more often that they usually did and into basic errors.
Thus far there is no secret as to how the Lions will play the first Test.
The tactical and accurate kicking game into the air is again expected to dominate whenever they go into attack, with Irish scrumhalf Conor Murray featuring prominently in this approach.
Any penalty indiscretions in their own half could be costly for the All Blacks, with the Lions flyhalf Owen Farrell having a high success rate with his goal kicking. For the longer kicks, Daly has shown that he can hit a few from inside his own half.
In the midfield there is a much anticipated showdown between Williams and the New Zealand-born Ben Te’o. Both run strongly and are line-breakers but while Williams is known for his offloads, Te’o is more of a powerful runner.
Beating the All Blacks remains on top of the must-do list for the Lions, now on their 12th tour of New Zealand since 1904. In that long history the tourists have won the series only once, in 1971, in what many pundits say was a tour that changed significantly the way the All Blacks play their rugby. On their previous tour to NZin 2005, the Lions lost all three Tests.
The statistics are proof of how tough it is to win the battle in New Zealand but this is one Lions team many say is one the strongest, if not the strongest, put together.
An estimated 22,000 Lions supporters have made it to New Zealand and with most of them expected to be at Eden Park, the anticipation is that their voices will drown whatever support there is for the home side, especi
ally with fans in New Zealand not known for their loud cheering or singing during a game.