HISTORY MAKERS

If you’re going to do it, why not do it in style?

The Lions rounded off what has been a rather mixed tour with an emphatic win over the Wallabies, running in five tries in a 41-16 mauling in the final test. After all the controversy over Warren Gatland’s team selection, it was the Kiwi who had the last laugh as he watched smugly from his box at the top of the ANZ Stadium.

To be fair to the Lions, they were absolutely brilliant.

All of them, every single one of them, played out of their skins and they fully deserved the scoreline that they got. Leigh Halfpenny in particular was incredible again with the boot and running with the ball too – he was rightly named the Man of the Series, he didn’t have a poor game in a red shirt.

It is a bitter pill for Robbie Deans to swallow. His job was very much under threat before the Lions series and it is safe to assume that he was told before the first test that a series win was the only thing that would save him. Now he has to answer for a lost series and I wouldn’t expect the Australian board will be too sympathetic to his plight considering the difference between the two sides in the final test. Rumours say Ewen McKenzie will take over as soon as possible, even though Deans still has a year to run. Australian rugby is struggling right now.

Nevertheless, rather than feel sympathetic for Australia, let us celebrate for the Lions who have won their first test series since 1997. While not everybody will agree with how the tour has gone about and decisions made by the coaching staff, in the end it was all correct, and in some ways it is good to see that Gatland’s final decision to drop Brian O’Driscoll was ultimately justified. Who knows how he would have felt on the plane home if he’d followed the crowd and gone with BOD instead of Davies and the Lions lost?

In the end it was a comfortable win – it was set up from the start when Will Genia dropped the ball from the kick-off and Alex Corbisiero then crashed over for the opening try of the match. You just knew that the Lions were up for it. Whether it was something that Warren Gatland said or whether it was simply the players looking for one last hurrah down under, it was close to a flawless performance.

However, while it’s all well and good applauding the Lions, let’s not get carried away. Despite the last match being close to a flawless performance, this was not a flawless tour. There have been plenty of controversies since the 37-man squad was announced back in April, none more so than the call-ups since then.

As much as we all like Tom Court and Shane Williams, their call-ups were not justified and they only joined up with the squad due to their location – Court was in Brisbane and Williams was flying in anyway. That is not the ethos of the Lions. The Lions are the best of the Brits and simply including players due to their location is not what a Lions tour is really about.

The team selected for the Brumbies match was also nothing short of ridiculous. A ramshackle back line thrown together at short notice resulted in an embarrassing loss and that was when people really began to question the tour’s viability. Luckily for Gatland his side won the tour.

Just picture the scene if the Lions had lost the final match though. They would have returned with a lot of questions hanging over their heads and Gatland would have a lot to answer for, especially with his team selections. I don’t think it would be an understatement to say that there would have been outrage at the Welsh-biased selection for the final test.

But there’s no point in dealing with ‘what ifs’ – the Lions won and return home victorious. Congratulations to them, and roll on 2017 in New Zealand!!!

THE HOUND’S TEAM OF THE SERIES

15. Leigh Halfpenny (Lions), 14. Israel Folau (Australia), 13. Jonathan Davies (Lions), 12. Christian Leali’ifano (Australia), 11. George North (Lions), 10. Jonathan Sexton (Lions), 9. Will Genia (Australia); 1. Alex Corbisiero (Lions), 2. Tom Youngs (Lions), 3. Adam Jones (Lions), 4. Alun-Wyn Jones (Lions), 5. Geoff Parling (Lions), 6. Ben Mowen (Australia), 7. Sam Warburton (Lions), 8. Toby Faletau (Lions).

Coach: Warren Gatland (Lions)