THE EXTENDED LIONS squad paid a visit to a Dublin restaurant last night and, with Wednesday slated as an official down day, many of the party indulged in beers or glasses of wine.
While selected Lions from Northampton, Leicester, Toulon, Ulster and Leinster grind away in semi-finals and finals over the coming days, Warren Gatland and his coaching staff are concentrating on drilling home basic calls and giving the players some space to bond.
Forwards coach Graham Rowntree, who had the same role with the Lions in 2009, is eager to replicate the sense of team spirit that got the side agonisingly close to a series win in South Africa. “We are one squad, one team,” said Rowntree. “That was the attitude and the mentality last time.”
Speaking to TheScore.ie at Carton House, Welsh hooker Richie Hibbard revealed captain Sam Warburton and 2009 captain Paul O’Connell have pushed socialising as a priority before the tour reaches Australia in early June. Hibbard said:
We’ve been working very hard together, but I think the gelling comes there as well. We’re all working hard as a team and pushing ourselves in the gym, on the park. Camaraderie comes there. But again, everyone comes together for a beer or a bit of a social event. So as soon as we get one of those under our belt we will be a full team.”
The first squad night out came at Bear, the restaurant part-owned by Ireland captain Jamie Heaslip, last night. Gatland is in favour of pushing Friday back a couple of hours to allow the players another social outing on Thursday.
Bottle of wine each for the Lions lads. (©INPHO/Dan Sheridan)
The attitude of the coaches, particularly when the tour is a condensed seven weeks, is spot-on according to Wales and Lions player Ieuan Evans. The former winger, who scored the series-clinching try against Australia in 1989, feels the tourists will have the edge over the Aussies if they can quickly form a team mentality.
He told TheScore.ie, “You have guys that were knocking seven bells out of each other just a couple of months ago in the Six Nations and now you are asking for them to put their bodies on the line for each other. I would give them the slight edge but you would want them forming those tight bonds before the Tests start.
The senior players, and guys that have toured previously, are crucial in this regard because they have to get across the importance of put country loyalties to one side and coming together as a squad. We had that in ’89 as only two guys, Donal Lenihan and Bob Norster, that had been on the 1983 tour [there was no Lions Tour in 1986].”
Evans declares the midweek team, captained by Lenihan and christened Donal’s Donuts, saved the 1989 series by defeating the Brumbies four days after Australia had lacerated the Lions ‘first XV’ 30-12.
“If we had lost that game,” said Evans, “given the manner of defeat in the First Test, our tour may never have recovered.”
