AN EARLY MORNING team announcement ahead of the third and deciding Lions Test against Australia. TheScore.ie felt like it was Christmas morning only to unwrap a shiny, red package to find a lump of Welsh coal.
Brian O’Driscoll’s illustrious, occasionally tragic, always committed, Lions career is over. His old wrecking-ball buddy, Jamie Roberts returns from a hamstring tear to start at inside centre. The spot outside him is filled by Roberts’ compatriot, Jonathan Davies. The Scarlets man sparkled in the 13 jersey early on tour but offered little when he was shifted to first receiver in the backline and his defensive lapse led to Australia’s game-clinching try in the Second Test.
Manu Tuilagi has got the call to sit and study on the replacements bench as head coach Warren Gatland seeks some of his destructive magic in a game with everything riding on it.
Gatland commented, “It was quite the lively meeting we had with the coaches last night in terms of going through and making the final selection. It was tough but we’ve come up with a side that we believe is good enough to do the job on Saturday.”
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We suggested, following the Lions 16-15 loss, that O’Driscoll’s place might be in trouble but, with tour captain Sam Warburton struggling with the hamstring tear that would eventually ruled him out of the Third Test, argued that Gatland would not risk dropping another totem. Warburton, Paul O’Connell and now O’Driscoll will watch, helpless, from the sidelines as a buoyant Australia scent victory.
With Wallaby captain James Horwill cleared to play in the series decider after his trial and retrial for a stamp, on new Lions captain Alun Wyn Jones, and George Smith rumoured to be in the selection mix for Saturday, most of the psychological boons are going the way of the home side. One would not be surprised to hear their coach, Robbie Deans announce the miraculous recovery of flanker David Pocock, such is the remarkable momentum shift.
The writing may have been on the wall for O’Driscoll some 12 hours before Gatland named his Lions XV, which features 10 Welshmen. In an interview [published a 15.55pm on Tuesday] the centre told French rugby website Rugbyrama.fr that instructions for the backline to curb their attacking instincts were disappointing. O’Driscoll said, “As a back you always want to play running and passing rugby, so these tactical game are sometimes frustrating.
To win, you have to know how to play with intelligence. If that’s through kicking and pressure, you have to do it… But do it right.”
Gatland will hope that his backline of five Welshmen, and Ireland’s Tommy Bowe and Jonathan Sexton, can prove him right and use their size advantage to bust the Wallaby defence. His decision to drop O’Driscoll looks like folly now but Lions fans will hope the coach’s faith in Davies and Roberts will be rewarded.
For now, while we await the decider, let us recall a 12-year, four-tour Lions career that has encapsulated the shimmering glory of youth [his 2001 wonder try against Australia], the crushing blow of his spear-tackling injury in 2005, a shock and awe partnership with Roberts in 2009 and his role as inspirational older statesman in the current set-up.
A damn fine player too, right until the end.
What do you think of Gatland’s decision to drop O’Driscoll and his squad selections?
A poor decision by a man who I think thinks he is managing the BaBas (without the swashbuckling). Gatland seems to have little or no respect for, or understanding of the honour of, or indeed the ethos of the British and Irish Lions unlike his compatriot Henry who viewed it as a kind of a fantasy rugby team and approached it with glee. Gatland seems to just not want to get beaten. Started with his captain selection and worked it’s solidly downwards from there. I thought we had reached a low with the ‘Shane Williams’ call up but alas he saved the worst for last. This should be the last foreign coach of the Lions. We didn’t need Gatland like we didn’t need Henry but at least Henry did want he was supposed to. Gatland is just doing what he wants.
Patrick I have to hold my hands up and say you were right, I was wrong. I honestly could never believe that someone could drop the best defensive 13 in world rugby and a huge leader for a deciding test! Gatland is lacking leaders with POC and Warb injured, somwhat does he do he drops two captains in BOD and Heaslip(who has played very well). This squad smacks of what happens when you have no Irish coach helping in selection- Rowntree, Farrell, Howley and Jenkins would have rowed in behind Gatland making this awful call. I imagine BOD feels sick training out there with the team this week now my heart goes out to him and I hope that we absolutely crush Wales in the 6N.
Can to explain that..is not picking a 34 year old who has being preforming average at best not fitting with Lions tradition…can i ask you a question? what do you know about Lions tradition?
Been a rugby fan for 35 years and have watched Irish teams play all over the world and never thought a day would come where I would hope that a team with a couple of ( token ) Irish players on it would lose. I will be cheering for Australia on Saturday and hoping that the world sees what a blithering idiot Gatlan is. Clearly BOD was dropped for criticising tactics and my guess is that Heislip ( the most consistent back row on the tour ) got dropped from the squad for backing up his Leinster and Ireland teammate.
Disgraceful and sickening decision by the coach.
BOD & Heaslip both dropped from the match day 23…. I hope Gatland knows something we don’t, but it looks as though he’s just shit his pants and turned to his welsh security blanket. With the loss of captain Warburton surely leaving BOD out is just going to buoy the Wallabies.
Momentum, Warren, has took a huge kangaroo like jump away from the clutches of the Lions.
There’s no Irish person who won’t be gutted by this decision..very harsh. Can’t see a victory from these selections but hope I’m wrong.. Would like to see SOB get a decent run out at least!
what I don’t get is how quick a lot of Irish fans were to jump on the bandwagon and start declaring their passion for the heritage and philosophy behind the Lions. Basically repeating what sky sports are ramming down everyones throats this last month. Add to that the homoerotic coverage and its surprising it took dropping BOD for us to realise the whole premise is flawed. Cheering on a load of welsh! get real!
BOD is a great athlete and getting dropped for one game doesn’t change that
Gatland comments last week after team selection were very similar to this week. O’Driscoll had the second highest tackle count last week beaten only by Vinoupol in a team going nowhere and pays for his efforts. Big big mistake.
What does Gatland deserve? Not a loss anyway. We have other Irish on the team who deserve it and whether BOD plays or not if they win he fulfils his dream of winning a Lions test. So many people on other forums saying they hope the Lions ‘get hammered’ because of this. Makes no sense to me.
How many Welsh players were in Heineken and Amlin Cup finals??! Irish players, particularly Leinster, are recent form players. Poor decision .. it’s a Lions squad and BOD epitomises what it means to be a Lion. The game will be won through defensive errors on Saturday and though he may lack some of his prior pace, he is still one of the best tacklers on rugby.
Absolutely horrible call. Gatland is trying to pick Welsh partnerships to claw out a win but when was the last time Wales beat Australia?? O’Driscoll deserves better than this. Honestly couldn’t care less if they win or lose now.
The reason they lost the 2nd test and almost the 1st one is the same reason Wales have been beaten so ofteny by the Aussies. Get a lead and then just hang on, a clear lack of ambition, so you have to ignore being beaten by 3 points or less as it demonstrates coaching fear wending its way into the player psyche. If a tight game at the end, where do you think the Lions heads will be. Not looking for the killer score, that’s for sure. The reverse about a coaches positive psyche is true but unfortunately no Joe or anyone else with innovation there. Gutted for BOD, the greatest player I have ever seen and the Lions nor last Ireland coaching set up were able to lace his boots. There is no longer any Lions brand, it’s all about the coaches. Glad Ian Madigan wasn’t exposed to these coaches, god knows what damage they could do to his development.
The Lions had a penalty advantage when O Driscoll kicked that ball, but with no advantage gained the ref said advantage over and waved play on. Penalty not given and try scored. How exactly is a refereeing decision Brians fault.
He’s not had his greatest tour in terms of scoring tries but then its hard to attack with such a negative coach, his defensive efforts though have been spectacular and that’s what they’ll miss on Saturday. We should have lost the first test, we deserved to lose the second and now I’m afraid we’ve squandered our best chance to win a series…..
Hard to fathom the selection in the back line. The pack not really arguable but you would argue for Heaslip having a lot more control at the base of the scrum than Faletau if the pack is to dominate. In the backs the BOD / Roberts axis is proven and Davies is , although young and with great potential, not the man the Lions need. Roberts / Davies have only once or max twice I can remember in any matches done something the opposition was not expecting. Hard to see where anything other than 3 points will come from. The Lions need to TAKE the game not wait for it to happen or hang on. I had thought we would see the ‘best’ the NH had to offer this Lions trip, but its more of the usual boring same fare in the 6N, which the SH countries are well able to handle in Summer or Autumn tours. If you have coaches with no imagination, then what I guess do we really expect. Even if we do win, its the manner of the win that will decide if Lions are worth supporting again and my planned trip to SA in 8 years time might just need to be cancelled. Expect BOD to be fully supportive of the team and players, as is the way of the great player, but just like Declan K, unfortunately Warren and the crew have ‘got’ him again. So glad we have Leinster to watch again next season so hopefully with new coach we will see the same attack rugby again, not the boring off the back of the scrum crap, time after time, phase after phase in front of the posts. Brian, we salute you.
For everyone saying BOD hadn’t performed you want wanna look at Tue stats, he had the highest number of tackles in the 2 tests and missed none. Add that to the obvious leadership he brings which will be needed in such a huge test and then the fact that he would have been raring to go in what would have been his last lions test which obv means a lot to him.
Disgrace. Just need to look at J davies performance on saturday and then Gatland still keeps faith with him and drops drico completly. If we win on saturday, but you pick your team on players performance and droppin o driscoll is completely unjustified!!
Its a shocking selection. 11 welsh ? Its lucky warburton , gethin jenkins and injured . He still hasn’t got a clue who is best 23 not even 15. BOD heaslip and youngs statt last week then dropped completely. Its lucky they have no welsh out half. I see a token scot lobbed in again
Great for the Irish lads who are starting and for Murray on the bench and hope they win. Harsh on BOD & Heaslip but they were not playing well. We didn’t hear any chorus of Waltzing O’Driscoll and he throw a shocking intercepted pass on one of the few decent Lions attacks last week. Age catches up with everyone and he is not the player of old. Despite most of the rants on the various stories given the players left available, difficult for me to find much to argue about with match day squad.
Everyone now shouting for Australia cos ODriscoll dropped ! As far as I know there are 4 other Irish players on the squad who I will be shouting for! ODriscoll is 34, over the hill , too slow !!
This is a very poor decision. It reminds me of the panic-tactics of Kidney in the 6 Nations when he dropped O’Gara for the Scotland game; and of course that game, although poor in many ways, was then lost due to the lack of the exact skills O’Gara has. I can see the exact same thing happening on Saturday.
I know O’Driscoll has shown much attacking magic this tour, but he hasn’t exactly had much opportunity to do anything special either; the Lions have played such negative rugby designed to get small kicked leads and then trying not to lose them instead of playing to out-and-out win. Defensively though O’Driscoll is incredible. He didn’t miss one of his tackles. Davies missed 3, including the vital one for the try. And for that one, you can see O’Driscoll correctly telling him exactly who to mark.
I’ve never been keen on Gatland but always respected him. I’ve been really surprised at how limited his game plan and tactics have been for this tour. And he has a large bias towards Wales – if Warburton and Gethin Jenkins were fit would we have 12 Welsh on the pitch? It’s as though the coaches have totally run out of ideas, are panicking and just falling back on what is most familiar to them.
I know O’Dricoll had an interview with a French website earlier in the week where he said something to the effect that the backs had been instructed to not play creative rugby, and that it was regretful to have such constricting tactics. I wonder if there is something more to Gatland dropping him than meets the eye. It doesn’t really make sense otherwise. End of career or not, O’Driscoll was still the one man who you know has the ability to singlehandedly turn and win a game in the last quarter.
As I said before , the Lions is a completely over hyped friendly , so O’Driscolls Lions career is at end , bohoo, he still going to go on play in the World Cup.
Quit yer whining and get behind your team, if the Lions win on Saturday it won’t matter a rattlers of BOD was dropped or not. People are up in arms about BOD, but correct me if I am wrong isn’t Heaslip the Irish captain?
Can’t wait for this Lions crap to end. Role on the Kilkenny Tipp match.
Look Everyone ,gatland is wrong end of, BOD should at the very least be on the bench! , unleash him with 20mins to go, even if wining or not what a sub to bring in , would of lifted lions nd crowd with 20 to go , and in doing that would of given the man the respect he deserves!! Has to be another reason , Reminds me of Ogara totally unfair after all the service!
Eddie, You can’t be big into rugby if you think in anyway that BOD is an impact player..never has been. His style means he either starts or he’s gone. He’s started, he’s sniffed around the Aussies but offered little in the way of offense..he doesn’t have the turn of pace to take a very talented Aussie back like to the tactics are changed and it doesn’t involve him. I have no issue with his dropping as he is not a sacred cow, he’s 34, been an amazing player, still a great defender but that’s it.
BOD should at the very least be on the bench ,what a sub to bring on with 20mins left !winning or losing it would of lifted the lions and the crowd !, gatland got that one wrong end of , he at least deserved that after all his service , reminds me of the way ogara was treated !, Bottom line treated unfairly and must be something else to it
These comments just show again that most of our “fans” are nothing more than band-wagoners who have the rugby nuance of a turnip..they hysteria buy the clueless fans is akin to the drama when Take That broke up.
O’Driscoll does not have a god given right to that shirt and going on his six nations performances it was obviously overlooked so he could tour in the first place. Please grow up you lot, it’s embarrassing us all.
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A poor decision by a man who I think thinks he is managing the BaBas (without the swashbuckling). Gatland seems to have little or no respect for, or understanding of the honour of, or indeed the ethos of the British and Irish Lions unlike his compatriot Henry who viewed it as a kind of a fantasy rugby team and approached it with glee. Gatland seems to just not want to get beaten. Started with his captain selection and worked it’s solidly downwards from there. I thought we had reached a low with the ‘Shane Williams’ call up but alas he saved the worst for last. This should be the last foreign coach of the Lions. We didn’t need Gatland like we didn’t need Henry but at least Henry did want he was supposed to. Gatland is just doing what he wants.
Excellent post
Patrick I have to hold my hands up and say you were right, I was wrong. I honestly could never believe that someone could drop the best defensive 13 in world rugby and a huge leader for a deciding test! Gatland is lacking leaders with POC and Warb injured, somwhat does he do he drops two captains in BOD and Heaslip(who has played very well). This squad smacks of what happens when you have no Irish coach helping in selection- Rowntree, Farrell, Howley and Jenkins would have rowed in behind Gatland making this awful call. I imagine BOD feels sick training out there with the team this week now my heart goes out to him and I hope that we absolutely crush Wales in the 6N.
Can to explain that..is not picking a 34 year old who has being preforming average at best not fitting with Lions tradition…can i ask you a question? what do you know about Lions tradition?
Gatland did what he was supposed to. He won the series. If Ireland were the best 15 you wouldn’t hear me complaining if he picked 15 irishmen.
I can see the cameras turning to BOD after 20 minutes, with the Lions down 14-0. Ridiculous decision and a costly one no doubt.
Been a rugby fan for 35 years and have watched Irish teams play all over the world and never thought a day would come where I would hope that a team with a couple of ( token ) Irish players on it would lose. I will be cheering for Australia on Saturday and hoping that the world sees what a blithering idiot Gatlan is. Clearly BOD was dropped for criticising tactics and my guess is that Heislip ( the most consistent back row on the tour ) got dropped from the squad for backing up his Leinster and Ireland teammate.
Disgraceful and sickening decision by the coach.
i’m guessing you didn’t do much cheering!
BOD & Heaslip both dropped from the match day 23…. I hope Gatland knows something we don’t, but it looks as though he’s just shit his pants and turned to his welsh security blanket. With the loss of captain Warburton surely leaving BOD out is just going to buoy the Wallabies.
Momentum, Warren, has took a huge kangaroo like jump away from the clutches of the Lions.
There’s no Irish person who won’t be gutted by this decision..very harsh. Can’t see a victory from these selections but hope I’m wrong.. Would like to see SOB get a decent run out at least!
sure who cares really about the British Lions really?
all about Tipp Kilkenny this weekend
I can’t wait for this shite to end either. Even before this I was looking forward to the game in Nowland Park more than this one in Sydney.
what I don’t get is how quick a lot of Irish fans were to jump on the bandwagon and start declaring their passion for the heritage and philosophy behind the Lions. Basically repeating what sky sports are ramming down everyones throats this last month. Add to that the homoerotic coverage and its surprising it took dropping BOD for us to realise the whole premise is flawed. Cheering on a load of welsh! get real!
BOD is a great athlete and getting dropped for one game doesn’t change that
For someone who doesnt care about the Lions you seem to have a lot to say by the number of comments on this site
GAA man eh so where is NOWLAND park
Gatland comments last week after team selection were very similar to this week. O’Driscoll had the second highest tackle count last week beaten only by Vinoupol in a team going nowhere and pays for his efforts. Big big mistake.
Kidney done it to ROG and now gatland does it to bod.
Seriously 10 welsh? I hope they get what gatland deserves.
What does Gatland deserve? Not a loss anyway. We have other Irish on the team who deserve it and whether BOD plays or not if they win he fulfils his dream of winning a Lions test. So many people on other forums saying they hope the Lions ‘get hammered’ because of this. Makes no sense to me.
Meant ‘winning a Lions tour’ he obviously can’t be part of winning Saturdays test!
Well said Aideen – world rugby does not rotate around ODriscoll !
They got exactly what Gatland deserves.
A shocking call for BOD. Disgusted to see him end his lions career like this. Here’s hoping Tommy, Seanie and Johnny play a blinder.
How many Welsh players were in Heineken and Amlin Cup finals??! Irish players, particularly Leinster, are recent form players. Poor decision .. it’s a Lions squad and BOD epitomises what it means to be a Lion. The game will be won through defensive errors on Saturday and though he may lack some of his prior pace, he is still one of the best tacklers on rugby.
what does it mean to be a lion?
Absolutely horrible call. Gatland is trying to pick Welsh partnerships to claw out a win but when was the last time Wales beat Australia?? O’Driscoll deserves better than this. Honestly couldn’t care less if they win or lose now.
Big Big mistake by Gatland No respect shown , BOD deserves more …
The reason they lost the 2nd test and almost the 1st one is the same reason Wales have been beaten so ofteny by the Aussies. Get a lead and then just hang on, a clear lack of ambition, so you have to ignore being beaten by 3 points or less as it demonstrates coaching fear wending its way into the player psyche. If a tight game at the end, where do you think the Lions heads will be. Not looking for the killer score, that’s for sure. The reverse about a coaches positive psyche is true but unfortunately no Joe or anyone else with innovation there. Gutted for BOD, the greatest player I have ever seen and the Lions nor last Ireland coaching set up were able to lace his boots. There is no longer any Lions brand, it’s all about the coaches. Glad Ian Madigan wasn’t exposed to these coaches, god knows what damage they could do to his development.
The reason they lost 2nd test was a brutal kick by ODriscoll who missed touch! Recycled ball to score winning try!
The Lions had a penalty advantage when O Driscoll kicked that ball, but with no advantage gained the ref said advantage over and waved play on. Penalty not given and try scored. How exactly is a refereeing decision Brians fault.
Mad, The Welsh card again!! post at the top of the page sums it all up.
He’s not had his greatest tour in terms of scoring tries but then its hard to attack with such a negative coach, his defensive efforts though have been spectacular and that’s what they’ll miss on Saturday. We should have lost the first test, we deserved to lose the second and now I’m afraid we’ve squandered our best chance to win a series…..
Hard to fathom the selection in the back line. The pack not really arguable but you would argue for Heaslip having a lot more control at the base of the scrum than Faletau if the pack is to dominate. In the backs the BOD / Roberts axis is proven and Davies is , although young and with great potential, not the man the Lions need. Roberts / Davies have only once or max twice I can remember in any matches done something the opposition was not expecting. Hard to see where anything other than 3 points will come from. The Lions need to TAKE the game not wait for it to happen or hang on. I had thought we would see the ‘best’ the NH had to offer this Lions trip, but its more of the usual boring same fare in the 6N, which the SH countries are well able to handle in Summer or Autumn tours. If you have coaches with no imagination, then what I guess do we really expect. Even if we do win, its the manner of the win that will decide if Lions are worth supporting again and my planned trip to SA in 8 years time might just need to be cancelled. Expect BOD to be fully supportive of the team and players, as is the way of the great player, but just like Declan K, unfortunately Warren and the crew have ‘got’ him again. So glad we have Leinster to watch again next season so hopefully with new coach we will see the same attack rugby again, not the boring off the back of the scrum crap, time after time, phase after phase in front of the posts. Brian, we salute you.
For everyone saying BOD hadn’t performed you want wanna look at Tue stats, he had the highest number of tackles in the 2 tests and missed none. Add that to the obvious leadership he brings which will be needed in such a huge test and then the fact that he would have been raring to go in what would have been his last lions test which obv means a lot to him.
Disgrace. Just need to look at J davies performance on saturday and then Gatland still keeps faith with him and drops drico completly. If we win on saturday, but you pick your team on players performance and droppin o driscoll is completely unjustified!!
is it though?? he has not had the greatest of tours. right call by Gatland i think but Tuilagi should be starting
Its a shocking selection. 11 welsh ? Its lucky warburton , gethin jenkins and injured . He still hasn’t got a clue who is best 23 not even 15. BOD heaslip and youngs statt last week then dropped completely. Its lucky they have no welsh out half. I see a token scot lobbed in again
Sorry ONLY 10 welsh
Great for the Irish lads who are starting and for Murray on the bench and hope they win. Harsh on BOD & Heaslip but they were not playing well. We didn’t hear any chorus of Waltzing O’Driscoll and he throw a shocking intercepted pass on one of the few decent Lions attacks last week. Age catches up with everyone and he is not the player of old. Despite most of the rants on the various stories given the players left available, difficult for me to find much to argue about with match day squad.
Everyone now shouting for Australia cos ODriscoll dropped ! As far as I know there are 4 other Irish players on the squad who I will be shouting for! ODriscoll is 34, over the hill , too slow !!
This is a very poor decision. It reminds me of the panic-tactics of Kidney in the 6 Nations when he dropped O’Gara for the Scotland game; and of course that game, although poor in many ways, was then lost due to the lack of the exact skills O’Gara has. I can see the exact same thing happening on Saturday.
I know O’Driscoll has shown much attacking magic this tour, but he hasn’t exactly had much opportunity to do anything special either; the Lions have played such negative rugby designed to get small kicked leads and then trying not to lose them instead of playing to out-and-out win. Defensively though O’Driscoll is incredible. He didn’t miss one of his tackles. Davies missed 3, including the vital one for the try. And for that one, you can see O’Driscoll correctly telling him exactly who to mark.
I’ve never been keen on Gatland but always respected him. I’ve been really surprised at how limited his game plan and tactics have been for this tour. And he has a large bias towards Wales – if Warburton and Gethin Jenkins were fit would we have 12 Welsh on the pitch? It’s as though the coaches have totally run out of ideas, are panicking and just falling back on what is most familiar to them.
I know O’Dricoll had an interview with a French website earlier in the week where he said something to the effect that the backs had been instructed to not play creative rugby, and that it was regretful to have such constricting tactics. I wonder if there is something more to Gatland dropping him than meets the eye. It doesn’t really make sense otherwise. End of career or not, O’Driscoll was still the one man who you know has the ability to singlehandedly turn and win a game in the last quarter.
Second paragraph should read that BOD has NOT shown much attacking magic this tour…
All that was a long-winded way of saying that Gatland is a tw@t.
As I said before , the Lions is a completely over hyped friendly , so O’Driscolls Lions career is at end , bohoo, he still going to go on play in the World Cup.
Quit yer whining and get behind your team, if the Lions win on Saturday it won’t matter a rattlers of BOD was dropped or not. People are up in arms about BOD, but correct me if I am wrong isn’t Heaslip the Irish captain?
Can’t wait for this Lions crap to end. Role on the Kilkenny Tipp match.
patrick mc. sport is harsh!
Look Everyone ,gatland is wrong end of, BOD should at the very least be on the bench! , unleash him with 20mins to go, even if wining or not what a sub to bring in , would of lifted lions nd crowd with 20 to go , and in doing that would of given the man the respect he deserves!! Has to be another reason , Reminds me of Ogara totally unfair after all the service!
Eddie, You can’t be big into rugby if you think in anyway that BOD is an impact player..never has been. His style means he either starts or he’s gone. He’s started, he’s sniffed around the Aussies but offered little in the way of offense..he doesn’t have the turn of pace to take a very talented Aussie back like to the tactics are changed and it doesn’t involve him. I have no issue with his dropping as he is not a sacred cow, he’s 34, been an amazing player, still a great defender but that’s it.
I nearly hope Australia win now, just to prove how stupid Gatland is.
Brilliant depiction of today’s events. Feel free to pass it on, Hitler isn’t a happy camper once again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Deg1bQt1rzQ
Bad decision
BOD should at the very least be on the bench ,what a sub to bring on with 20mins left !winning or losing it would of lifted the lions and the crowd !, gatland got that one wrong end of , he at least deserved that after all his service , reminds me of the way ogara was treated !, Bottom line treated unfairly and must be something else to it
Since he’s not even in the 23 I reckon Gatland and O’Driscoll have fallen out. The rumours are suggesting this.
All i can say is thank god he singed on for 1 more year! Gatty gone batty i hope the lions lose.
These comments just show again that most of our “fans” are nothing more than band-wagoners who have the rugby nuance of a turnip..they hysteria buy the clueless fans is akin to the drama when Take That broke up.
O’Driscoll does not have a god given right to that shirt and going on his six nations performances it was obviously overlooked so he could tour in the first place. Please grow up you lot, it’s embarrassing us all.