The Lions sauntered to their most straightforward win of the tour this far this morning: strangling the life out of the challenge of the Maori All Blacks 32-10 in dreadful conditions in Rotorua. It was a comfortable victory for the Lions, as the Maori failed to create a chance of note: their solitary try came through a George North error than any true attacking craft.
After the game, Sky Sports selected their XV for the opening Test against the All Blacks next Saturday, with both Stephen Ferris and Ian McGeechan picking Peter O'Mahony and Sean O'Brien ahead of captain Sam Warburton in the back row. Both gave O'Mahony the captaincy, having been impressed with his leadership as captain this morning.
Not everyone has been impressed at O'Mahony's captaincy, however. In their debrief of the game, local outlet decreed that Sam Warburton must play...as O'Mahony failed to handle referee Jaco Peyper.
Here's the relevant extract from Mark Reason's piece:
Sam Warburton may not be fully fit, but it is starting to look like the Welshman may have to play against the All Blacks at Eden Park. The Lions are a team desperately in need of a captain and the shambles that took place during the first half in Rotorua was a low point of the tour.
There was no discipline and the Lions were both penalised and warned for back chatting to the referee. Admittedly you sometimes need to have the composure of a Tibetan monk not to ask the ref if he knows what time of day it is.
But these are professional rugby players and they should know better. The Lions gave away far too many penalties, again, and captain Peter O'Mahony appeared to be doing absolutely nothing to appease the man in charge....
...O'Mahony had no idea how to communicate with Peyper and neither did his teammates.
At the end of the half the Lions kicked a penalty into touch and thought that was an end to it. But Peyper signalled the lineout had to be taken and was immediately pursued by Conor Murray, Johnny Sexton and O'Mahony. It was not a good look. The Lions' discipline had collapsed.
If that continues next week then they will be clobbered by Peyper in the first test at Eden Park. In order to win this series, the Lions have to force penalties through their forward drive and give next to nothing away. Only the first half of that equation looks like happening at the moment.
We're not quite sure about that. There was a moment of confusion at the end of the first-half, when Conor Murray kicked a penalty out to end the half, only to be told by Peyper that the new law dictates that the ball must be tapped to be made alive again, before kicking it to touch to end the game. But to come to the conclusion that O'Mahony shouldn't play from such a minute incident is ludicrous.
There was a brief spell in the first-half when the Lions were pinged a couple of times in succession, but one of those - Maro Itoje was penalised for going off his feet - owed more to the idiosyncrasies on the part of Jaco Peyper than it did to any transgression on Itoje's part.
Also, there is objective evidence of O'Mahony's good communication with Peyper in the second-half. After the Maoris collapsed a scrum five metres from their own line in the second-half, O'Mahony queried with Peyper whether or not he was going to take any action. He didn't, but the following scrum ended in Peyper awarding a penalty try to the Lions.
Peyer is refereeing the first test, so this seems like a classic case of the Kiwi media feeling they can put some pressure on the referee and the Lions ahead of the first Test, knowing how our old friend Peyper is capable of virtually anything.
Elsewhere, Gregor Paul of the NZ Herald had a slightly salty but really quite good intro to his match report:
In beating the Maori with considerable ease, the Lions took rugby back a few decades in Rotorua but themselves forward a number of significant steps.
And further down, this was a highlight:
...with all the surprise factor of a Russian election, the big runners came off the ruck and hit it up. It was bump, recycle, bump recycle.
See Also: Joe Schmidt Says What We're All Thinking About Gatland's Latest Lions Call-Ups
