British and Irish Lions 2007: Warren Gatland has taken a selection gamble, but his reasoning is ultimately flawed

Has Warren Gatland panicked? It’s a question that we will not know the answer to until around 10:30am on Saturday morning. By then, the British and Irish Lions series may be done and dusted too, and Gatland left licking his wounds with his reputation taking a major hit.

If the Lions fail to overturn their 1-0 series deficit, it will not be the end of Gatland given the size of the challenge that is toppling the All Blacks, but that has not stopped Gatland putting his reputation on the line in the hope of taking the tour to a decider back in Auckland next weekend.

Gatland’s response has been to deploy Johnny Sexton and Owen Farrell together in the hope of sparking something they were missing in the first Test and unlocking their full creative potential.

In theory, it’s a great idea, and one that was widely called for before the squad departed the home nations. So why when Gatland explains his reasoning behind it does it not quite add up?

“They haven’t started together but they have had quite a bit of time together,” Gatland said of Sexton and Farrell on Thursday. “The combination against the Crusaders was good and they had a bit of time last week. It gives us two ball-players, two kicking options on the right foot at first and second receiver, with the left foot options with Jonathan Davies and Elliot Daly as well.

“One concern we have got is looking at the long-range weather forecast, it doesn’t look good for Saturday night, so may have to change tactically the way we are going to play. We need to do a job defensively on Sonny Bill Williams too. He was pretty direct against us and got a couple of offloads away. It’s important we try and shut him down.”

The two statements appear to contradict each other. On the one hand, Sexton and Farrell do have the potential to excite and did look to be on the same wave length when they were paired together earlier in the tour. But on the other hand, the predicted wet weather and the danger that Williams poses do not call for two fly-halves to line up on Saturday, but for Ben Te’o to remain in the mix.

Instead, Te’o is dropped to the bench, despite impressing far beyond what was expected of the Worcester Warriors centre when he was selected in the squad. Gatland accepted it was a harsh call on the 30-year-old Te’o, given the working over he gave Williams last week, but the Lions coach has decided to ditch the containment policy planned for All Blacks’ inside centre in order to expose a perceived weakness in their wide defence, as was shown last week.

“It has been tough call for him. Ben has done really well,” said Gatland. “We have made a call based on the amount of opportunities we created. We did stress the All Blacks at times. They got pretty narrow, so that does open up some opportunities for us to attack them if we get the ball and that is why we have gone with the combinations we have.

“We allowed him [Williams] a bit too much time on the ball last week. I can’t remember him passing the ball, but he got some good gainline for them and got a couple of offloads away and gave them some front-foot ball. In terms of stopping that, we have to make sure our line-speed is good. We have to stop him being as effective as he was and we have been working pretty hard on that.”

That’s a big ask for Sexton and Farrell, no matter how committed the pair are on Saturday, and it didn’t help when Gatland then revealed the injury records of his starting line-up played a part in his decision to reject a six-two forward-back split among the replacements that led to the exclusion of both last week’s skipper Peter O’Mahony and Iain Henderson.

It would be fair to say that Gatland isn’t exactly making the right noises ahead of one of the biggest games of his career, but that won’t be what counts come Saturday. The one thing that is a given is that Gatland has laid his cards down, and now he just has to hope that his hand has something special in it to stun the All Blacks. If not, it’ll be his neck on the line.