In memory of the Lions

OK it was a superb series, the All Blacks not the Lions.

As the result of the test series sank in, there has been a lot of blame thrown at Clive Woodward. I would agree with the most of the detail of those criticisms, but it was not Woodward's fault we lost.
If we are to progress we must understand there was no combination of players, or coaching techniques available, to make up for the fact that the All Blacks were better than us.

Rugby requires three attributes Strength, Speed and Skill. The Lions gave the impression that they can match the All Blacks in the gym, but they are not as quick and not as skilful. The scary thing is that the All Blacks were not capable of a performance like this a while ago. They have always had the basic attributes, they are fast , they are skilful and they are strong. What is new this time is that there has been a great coaching effort to translate those attributes in to the game we saw.

Up North in the forwards there are lots of big lumps, but they are too
slow and plenty of quick guys who are too light. Gethin Jenkins and Ryan Jones are in the right mould but they seemed to struggled for fitness in the later stages of the matches.

I hope the Leicester guys go back and change the way they play, McGeechan can do the same at Wasps. If they do it right the rest of the Premiership will follow. If we don't get it right we are going to struggle for the next world cup, if we do the the All Blacks have peaked too early.