Scotty Stevenson: The experts have spoken on Warren Gatland

Forget everything the British & Irish Lions coach has achieved with Waikato, the Chiefs, Wasps, Ireland, Wales… the proof is always in the warm-up tour match.

Warren Gatland, the only British and Irish Lions coach to win a test series this century, is apparently, according to a panel of at least a few thousand renowned experts on the subject, no longer the man to coach the Lions. Quite who is the man to coach the Lions no one can say, but based on the evidence of one sloppy tour match victory in Whangarei, it is not Warren Gatland.

Gatland’s biggest crime, it appears, is to have not looked overly worried after the Lions battled their way to an uncomfortable and unconvincing victory against the Provincial Barbarians, a team captained for the last 30 minutes of the match by a sheep farmer from Raetihi who had never played a first division game. Obviously, publicly ridiculing his first team of the tour would have been the better option.

Worse, he may also have hinted at the fact the ridiculously compressed international window, capriciousness of the European and English clubs, lack of appropriate preparation time for a tour of this prestige and magnitude, and the well-documented after-effects of 36 hours of international travel may have been contributing factors.  Never in rugby history has a coach made excuses for a bad performance. Other coaches, like Eddie Jones during his post-match interview following the Six Nations match between England and Italy, simply state facts.

Warren Gatland, the only British and Irish Lions coach to win a test series this century, has also drawn ire for apparently creating an entirely new sport called ‘Warrenball’, a sport no one can accurately describe without descending into a bottomless well of lazy cliché and absurd generalisation.

If only he had focused on coaching rugby during his tenure with Waikato, the Chiefs, Wasps, Ireland, Wales, and the British and Irish Lions, we wouldn’t have to talk about two sports on this tour. What an asshole. It is such a distraction for all involved to have to learn, and use, ‘Warrenball’ terms like ‘direct’, ‘confrontational’, and ‘rush defence’, which have never been used to describe rugby before. No wonder there are calls for his head.

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Then there’s this whole issue about picking as captain of the Lions, the man who he picked to captain the Lions last time. Who has ever heard of this kind of loyalty in rugby before? The nerve of the guy. Next he’ll be playing Warburton in the test series even if the skipper has, say, a broken foot. You wouldn’t have any other coach try that shit just because someone has shown he has the will, the dedication and the desire to play at the highest level.

Farrell a ten? Let’s put aside for the moment the fact that Farrell, who was standing on the left hand five-metre line, orchestrated the Lions’ opening try of the tour on Saturday night, firstly by telling halfback Greig Laidlaw to pass to the openside, then by running forty metres across field to receive the first pass from the resulting midfield ruck, then by throwing a perfect, flat cut out ball to Ross Moriarty, then by scampering to the blind side on the right from where he once again received the first pass and put Anthony Watson over in the corner with a draw and a pass.

You do not want a man with that kind of vision and tactical awareness running your game plan. Who would want someone like that in the ten jersey at all? No, Farrell is a midfielder who is better off carting the ball up from twenty metres behind the gainline and making tackles all day. His awareness of space and willingness to be involved three times in try-scoring plays would be an absolute waste at fly-half.

Let’s be frank. What this team needs is someone well versed in New Zealand rugby and the pressure on players to earn the nation’s respect; someone for whom loyalty, heart and commitment mean something because those concepts comprise the soul of the sport; someone who is prepared to give every one of the 41 players a chance to show their chops ahead of the test matches even if that means results may vary, because that is in the inclusive spirit of what the Lions as a team is supposed to represent.

There’s one coach who just might fit that bill. Tonight, against the Blues at Eden Park, some players need to as well.