POSSESSION IS NINE tenths of the law for Sean O’Brien as he faces into another ferocious breakdown contest with New Zealand in Saturday’s second Lions Test.
The Tullow Tank has retained his openside position with tour captain Sam Warburton preferred to Peter O’Mahony on the blindside of Taulupe Faletau.
The Lions were quick to admit last week that they came off second best in post-tackle zones, but there was clearly a frustration with the rule of referee Jaco Peyper and O’Brien – politely, he insists – sought some clarification from the South African about the length of time being afforded the Kiwis to let go and recycle on certain slow rucks.
“I felt sometimes that we were in a good place, maybe more than four or five-second rucks sometimes, and I thought we’d get a little more change out of that, so I just said it to him at the end: ‘how long do you have to hold on for here?’
“It’s all part of it as well. You survive some good ones and you get other (penalties) a lot quicker. It was probably a bit of frustration on my part.”
O’Brien cast aside the suggestion that he might go to this weekend’s referee Jerome Garces much sooner, saying he is focused on his own job. But he’s familiar enough with the official to expect attacking teams to be rewarded.
“I think the French referees are very good at the breakdown. They like the attacking team to keep the ball, so hopefully we’ll have more ball this week than we had last week.
“If we take our own initiative around that area, make sure we’re as clean as possible in that area and giving the referee good pictures.
“Maybe the defensive breakdown (approach could change), but attacking breakdown we need more intent around that area. Defensively, you just have to make smart decisions. If you give the referee a bad picture or you’re not where you should be, it’s an easy decision.
“Using your head is massive and being smart around that area. We’re not using one or two people in rucks (as was Steven Hansen’s view), we’re using what we need in rucks and wherever that is on the field, that’s where it is. And however we need to resource it, we’ll resource it properly.
The biggest thing when we have the ball is to make sure we’re holding onto it and keeping them under pressure and not putting ourselves under pressure.”
With the set-piece also dominated by the men in black, the Lions’ flipped many assumptions on their head by looking most potent in their broken field running through the evasive lines taken by Anthony Watson, Elliot Daly and Liam Williams. Never more so than when Williams, Daly and Jonathan Davies combined to take the tourists coast to coast and reward O’Brien for keeping pace with the outside backs by popping him a finish to one of the greatest ever Lions tries.
“I wasn’t too far away from (Williams) actually when he got it, and when he made the half break I put the head down and got moving as quickly as I could, just followed up with him.
“It was a great piece of play by him, Elliot and Jon Davies, then I got on the end of a good score.”
The Lions need much more where that came from… and plenty more from everywhere else too.
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