British and Irish Lions boss Warren Gatland wants to see the best of Leigh Halfpenny’s attacking game against the Maori All Blacks.
Renowned for his goalkicking, Gatland wants to see the veteran Wales full-back be as creative as possible in Rotorua. Halfpenny has scored 12 tries in 74 Tests for Wales and the Lions.
“We know how strong he is defensively and positionally… obviously his goal-kicking as well,” Gatland told the BBC.
“But it’s the attacking threat we’re looking for him to add. His counter-attacking and scoring tries has improved significantly, that’s kind of what we need from a 15.
“Saturday is an opportunity as well for him to show what experience he has got.”
Gatland added that Ross Moriarty was close to a return to action after recovering from a back spasm, having not been involved in a match since the opening win over the Provincial Barbarians.
“He’s been unlucky, he hasn’t trained for about five days with that [injury], today [Thursday] was the first training session he had,” Gatland added.
“We felt that – particularly with this game – the players that had been training on a regular basis and had been involved in the last couple of games, were the players that deserved to be selected for this game.
“He’ll take part probably next week in Tuesday’s match to get a run out.”
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