As always with squad announcements some key talking points arose from the list of 41 players that Warren Gatland has selected to take to New Zealand.
The omissions of Dylan Hartley and Joe Launchbury both caused plenty of discussion across the country as did the number of Scots included north of the border. Here's Warren Gatland's thoughts and views on those three topics, as well as the insights he provides regarding his thinking about Owen Farrell, is he in as a fly-half or a centre?
Dylan Hartley
In the build up to this squad announcement the intense competition for places always meant that highly experienced and capable individuals were always going to miss out. Now we know that one of those is England’s captain and here’s the Lions head coach's perspective on that decision:
“We had some lively debate and Dylan is very unlucky in terms of not going, but if we'd selected Dylan you'd be saying Jamie George, Ken Owens or Rory Best. We didn't select Rory Best and there was uproar in Ireland over that selection. Dylan has done a great job for England since he has captained the team.
“There's no doubt that or leadership qualities. He brings a competitiveness to the tight forwards and we discussed that, do we need that from a tight forward. There was a long discussion about that and a debate.
“At the end of the day we felt we couldn't leave Jamie out. There's a potential for him to keep improving. He's done a good tings coming off the bench and is playing well for Saracens. We felt there's continued improvement in him as a player and that Rory and Ken had great Six Nations. There was always going to be a tough call and someone was always going to be disappointed. There were was long and lively discussion.”
Joe Launchbury
Since day dot we've also known that the spots for locks on the plane were going to be some of the toughest to select and Wasps' captain couldn't have done anything more to try and book one.
“Again, it’s the same thing. Joe is unlucky, and we had a discussion about the second-rows. In terms of the second-rows, we weren’t going to leave out Alun Wyn Jones or Maro Itoje. They were nailed on for us. Iain Henderson has done an exceptional job for Ireland. He called line-outs that day [Ireland against England] and did a very good job.
“We just discussed the differences between Courtney and Joe. Different players and having the discussion here now if we’d left out Courtney Lawes, you’d be asking the same question: ‘why did you leave out Courtney Lawes and what’s the difference?’ Joe Launchbury is very, very unlucky and again there was a long discussion about second-rows, and the depth and the quality that we’ve got in those positions.”
Scottish representation
One of the first splits that so many look at following a British & Irish Lions squad announcement is the breakdown by nation. Once again after Wednesday's squad the ‘lack’ of Scots has produced a bit of uproar north of the border however Warren Gatland was clear that nationality didn’t come into selection decisions:
“That was a thing – take the nationality out of it, let’s put all the players in contention in the positions and discus that. Go through the pros and cons of the players and forget about nationality.
"At the end of the day, we just felt we’d looked at the footage, we’d done our due diligence, looked at the game in Twickenham. There’s no doubt that Scotland have done very well. They will be aggrieved and disappointed about that. They performed exceptionally well at home and probably the greatest strength that Scotland have had is probably their collective performance.
The head coach added:
“We’re not playing at home. We’re playing away from home. Scotland haven’t been to New Zealand since 2000, and we’re playing the best team, back to back world champions, in their own back yard. So we have to perform away from home, and that’s going to be paramount for us.
Owen Farrell - 10 or 12?
As fly-half at Saracens and a centre for England it's abundantly clear that Owen Farrell can deliver the highest possible standards in both positions so the key question for the British & Irish Lions head coach had to be just where the Saracen fits into his thinking:
“We’ve picked Owen as a 10. I think there’s going to be a lot of competition in that position, the thing is people are saying either Johnny Sexton or Owen Farrell is going to play but don’t discount the competitiveness of Dan Bigger. He isn’t going to lie down and that’s what we want. But it could be a scenario where we end up with the best players on the field and if the best players end up being Johnny Sexton or Dan Biggar at 10 and Owen Farrell at 12 then we’ll do that. We’re confident we know that Owen Farrell can do that job for us, he’s done it for England.
“There’s no doubt of that three players defensive ability, we’re confident that New Zealand are going to come down that channel at us and one of the things that Owen Farrell does bring is line speed defensively at 10, it’s a strength of his game that he’s got an edge about him – they’ve all got an edge about them – but he’s got an edge about him.
"We’ve looked at that from a defensive point of view, we’ve looked at how he plays there for Saracens. I think he sees himself as a 10 and knows he can do a job who can do a job at 12 and there’s not many players around who’ve got those sort of capabilities and are able to do that, obviously Dan Carter was one.”
