The British and Irish Lions gather to celebrate after their victory during the 1st Test match between the South Africa Springboks and the British and Irish Lions. Photo / Getty Images.
The British and Irish Lions gather to celebrate after their victory during the 1st Test match between the South Africa Springboks and the British and Irish Lions. Photo / Getty Images.
OPINION:
International rugby might just be spinning towards a brave new world where teams are once again prepared to invest more in their attack than their defence.
It's unlikely that test football can free itself entirely from the suffocating grip of rush defences and box kicking halfbacks, but there isa new wave of optimism that the sport is emerging out of one of its more prolonged periods of lowest denominator strategising.
Somewhat fittingly, as it was the British & Irish Lions who dragged most of the world into a defensive dungeon four years ago, it is the composite side who may now be the key driver of an attacking revolution.
Having come to New Zealand in 2017 with a conservative but incredibly effective plan based on their defensive linespeed, the Lions have pitched up in South Africa with a desire to pass, catch and run.
Just how different their approach is in 2021 compared with 2017, could be seen in the selection of their team for the first test.
Out went senior halfback Conor Murray, a player who in the last few years has seemingly rid his hard drive of all other options bar ponderously but brilliantly hoisting high balls not particularly far.
Nor was there room for Owen Farrell – the Englishman who has all the flair and same focus on functionality as a Communist-bloc architect.
Welsh fullback Liam Williams missed out to the enigmatic Stuart Hogg – a Scotsman whose only instinct appears to be to attack.
Test rugby is prone to cyclical trends and it looks now as if the obsession with rush defences and low risk rugby could be ending.
The second test between the Lions and Springboks could tip the balance – set the course for international rugby in a new, more expansive direction through to the next World Cup if the former can secure the series after winning the first test.
Sam Whitelock of the All Blacks talks to his team following the International Test Match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Fiji. Photo / Getty Images.
The Lions gameplan and execution never quite matched their adventurous and personnel selection in Cape Town, but they scraped home nevertheless.
It's often the case with a Lions tour that perception and intent are more powerful than reality, or at least what happens is the outcome can be used to amplify the truth – exaggerate a narrative.
Another victory this week and this Lions tour will be remembered as the one where coach Warren Gatland went to South Africa with a plan to run the Boks off their feet.
It will be a tour immortalised as one where mobile, dynamic athletes and ball players were preferred to older, steadier players and one where the Lions played with a desire to find space rather than shut it down.
How it's presented matters because Lions tours typically set the thinking for the individual nations whose players make up the team and the ideas they take home tend to be adopted.
That's most certainly what happened in 2017 – the drawn series in New Zealand was a green light for Ireland, England and Wales to tighten every aspect of their game and focus on their defence, kicking and set-piece as their foundation pillars.
There have already been strong indications this new wave of attacking rugby is spreading.
France, having left most of their best players at home, played some clever rugby in their recent three-test series against the Wallabies.
It wasn't quite France of the 1980s, but it wasn't so far off either and their resurgence has been built on a new found desire to play at speed and with width. They have lost the desire to Anglicise their rugby.
That the Wallabies managed to beat them in the third test with just 14 men for 75 minutes is confirmation that Australia remain not only a team determined to move the ball, but with the ability to do so now with a degree of composure and vision that was arguably missing at times last year.
The All Blacks, who never bought into the idea of playing without the ball the way so many others did, have arguably doubled down on their belief that an attacking mindset is the best means to win games.
The backline which started the test against Fiji in Hamilton was one of the smallest they have picked in a decade, but one of the quickest and trickiest in terms of movement.
There's no certainty yet that this attacking revolution will accelerate and come to be the default style of most international rugby sides, but the wheels are in motion and they will spin faster if the Lions win the second test.
