Gatland, O’Brien and the media - everyone’s right but everyone’s wrong

And there we were, thinking that the British & Irish Lions tour was all over and done with.

Turns out the reffing controversy that ended the third test wasn’t the end at all, in fact it’s probably not even going to be as big a talking point in years to come as the verbal jousting we’ve seen in recent weeks.

Since the end of the tour, the murmurings of discontent have bubbled over into the public arena. Irish flanker Sean O’Brien has been the catalyst for criticism of coach Warren Gatland, saying that the team was overtrained in the lead up to the first and third tests.

Thing is, he’s probably right. The schedule was already brutal enough without any days off, and the test side had mostly put in a test-level performance in their hard-fought wins against the Crusaders and Maori All Blacks.

In response, Gatland has more or less agreed with O’Brien’s claims despite making it obvious that he’s not happy with such dirty laundry being aired in public. However, he’s kept up his  criticism of the New Zealand media – who mercilessly savaged him in the lead up and during the tour.

He’s probably right too. The timing of O’Brien’s comments, mere months after the tour, is pretty petty. Gatland has little right to reply fully in the capacity of a still-active test coach, and knows that anything remotely controversial he says will generate a multitude of headlines that’ll be rolled out ad nauseum during the upcoming northern hemisphere season. With regards to the media, the whole tour coverage hasn’t exactly gone down as the country’s finest hour of journalism – so even the most cynical Kiwi will agree with Gatland on that one.

In fairness, though, the media in this part of the world were simply playing up to the reputation Gatland has carved out for himself over the years. His combative attitude and adherence to a style of play derisively dubbed ‘Warrenball’ hasn’t won many friends, and his less than stellar record with Wales has rightfully put him under scrutiny.

The most telling press conference of the whole tour was after the drawn match with the Hurricanes, when Gatland was being grilled for not only bringing in a bunch of no names to make up squad numbers – then not even bringing them off the bench as the clearly gassed Lions almost succumbed to a fast-finishing home side. He looked like a man disinterested with having to justify himself, one sigh away from admitting the obvious fact that he didn’t care about the fixture at all.

So we were probably right, too. Gatland, despite being in charge of two Lions tours that ended in a win in Australia and a highly creditable drawn series in New Zealand, is hardly likely to have the welcome mat rolled out for him if he comes looking for a Super Rugby appointment after his time with Wales is up. The tour was, in part, supposed to be his chance to show the NZ public that he was a guy they could warm to and pressure NZ Rugby to woo back to eventually take the big job of coaching the All Blacks. Right now he’s about as far away from that as he was when the tour started.

Should we be surprised? It’s a well known fact that Lions tours are political, often dysfunctional affairs – we saw that in 2013 when the O’Driscoll dropping turned out to be a bigger story than the Lions actually winning the series.

However, they came to New Zealand under immense pressure, which was compounded after a couple of key injuries and a slow start to the tour. Against all odds, and thanks to a slice of serious good fortune in the second test, they almost pulled off an incredible victory. They left with a great deal of respect and renewed faith in the Lions concept. To think that people were calling for future tours to be scrapped seems ludicrous after the intensity of the series.

So let’s not flush away all that goodwill with this nonsense. O’Brien’s comments may well be completely valid, but saying them now smacks of petulance – if nothing else you should be saving stuff like this for when you have a tell-all book about to be released.

The Lions are supposed to be hark back to the good old days of rugby, when guys were playing for nothing more than glory. With this in mind, the very least all sides in this should do is remember this pretty pertinent life rule: there’s being right, and then there’s just being a jerk about it.