This week we will be mostly concerning ourselves with Sonny Bill Williams, Sean O'Brien, the US Eagles and a certain series decider.
Blacklash
You won't be surprised to discover that this is the second draft of this week's Loose Pass. We had one pretty much set to roll prior to events in Wellington at the weekend. Reading it back now makes us fear that we haven't the first clue about rugby.
We had Warren Gatland bang to rights. We were calling for his immediate impeachment on grounds of insanity. It was abundantly clear to us that the pressure had got to him – and he'd cracked.
Dropping Ben Te'o? He was the best Lion on the pitch during the first Test! Making scapegoats of Peter O'Mahony and George Kruis? Cowardly! Sticking with Alun Wyn Jones? Totally misguided! Instigating a partnership between Owen Farrell and Jonny Sexton at this stage of proceedings? In the path of Sonny Bill Williams? What exactly is Gatland wearing under that oversized Lions anorak: a clown suit or an All Blacks jersey?
Well, turns out there really is a fine line between genius and lunacy. Gatland is now one match away from a knighthood following his "masterly selections" and has just been touted as the AB boss-in-waiting by no less a figure than Graham Henry.
Putting one over the All Blacks on their own turf is no mean feat and Gatland deserves the plaudits that have been laid at his feet.
But let's not get carried away.
A team playing with an extra man for the best part of an hour shouldn't really need to rely on a kick at the death to sneak a win – particularly when the opposition's kicker would have troubling shaping his foot under a sleeping dog.
With the tourists now set to endure a backlash to end all backlashes, we can't help but feel that much of our first draft still rings true and that the tour's post-mortem will centre on Gatland's thinking ahead of the first Test.
That game was there for the taking. The All Blacks were coming in cold, and yet they were allowed full control of the breakdown due to the Lions' failure to pick a single recognised disrupter. Maro Itoje had to start that game. Sam Warburton, too.
And then there's that Sexton-Farrell axis. It needed to be the standard partnership, not the surprise option. Think back to the chances that went a-begging during the first Test and just ponder what a more fluid midfield could have lent the Lions' surprisingly effervescent backline.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course. But you'd expect top coaches to have a little.
Expect that knighthood to disappear into the Auckland night.
Bravo!
French rugby is not exactly a bed of roses at present. But in Jérôme Garcès they possess possibly the finest official of our times.
No one quite knows how it feels to show a red card to an All Black on New Zealand soil because it simply hadn't happened until Saturday. But Garcès had the guts to do just that – and to a national icon, to boot.
And by 'guts' we mean grace under pressure. He didn't want to do it, but he knew he had to do it – even after failing (bizarrely/worryingly) to win anything more than reluctant backing from his immediate team of officials, both on the pitch and in front of the screens.
And when the dreaded moment came, he brandished the card with courtly and almost apologetic tact: "I have no choice. It was a direct shoulder to the head. I need to protect the player."
Class personified.
Loose Pass strives to respect officials at all times (mainly due to the fact that they make far fewer mistakes than the men under their orders), but referees do tend to turn red rather than show red during the bigger games.
So let's hope that Garcès has shown his colleagues that they need not be afraid of direct action. Nor do they need to fear reaction: the New Zealand public, to its immense credit, respected the decision without question.
And of more importance to the timid refs that stalk the rugby world, please note that the sky didn't fall in. Garcès wasn't run out of town!
Armed and dangerous
What we give with one hand, me must – sadly – take with the other.
We're still utterly baffled as to why Sean O'Brien was hauled in front of the beaks for joining a nascent maul with the use of his arms. The shoulders are out, so how else are you suppose to do it?
Okay, yes – we accept that the "head and neck area" are now sacrosanct and that O'Brien did swing his arm in an attempt to dislodge the ball from Waisake Naholo's grasp. But the fact that part of said arm – and it's a big one – made contact with Naholo's lowered head is surely by the by. Incidental. Just part and parcel of rugby.
We're not saying that it didn't deserve to be looked at (again, it's all about the head and neck) but if this required a review then surely a host of other incidences required further investigation – in this particular game and, indeed, in all games.
I guess what we're really after is proper clarification of the law under which O'Brien was cited – 10.4 Dangerous play and misconduct (a), to be precise. It states: "A player must not strike an opponent with the hand, arm or fist, including the elbow, shoulder, head or knee(s)."
If citing commissioner Scott Nowland believed O'Brien's action had met the threshold for a red card, how come the three-man judicial panel did not even slap the Irishman on the wrists? Why the glaring divergence in view?
We learned only the O'Brien was in the clear, not how he managed to get himself there during the four-hour hearing.
If rugby is to really overcome the scourge of concussion, we need to act together and be privy to the calculations of those in the know.
Not for the first time of asking, we beseech World Rugby to arm us with all the facts.
American dream
And so congratulations to the United States who booked a spot at Rugby World Cup 2019 courtesy of a polished 52-16 victory over Canada.
The prize? Dates with England, France, Argentina and the second-placed qualifier from Oceania. Hmm. Enjoy those Buds now, boys!
But the Eagles need not be too glum. Loose Pass has long touted them as the Next Big Things in world rugby, and the manner of their qualification serves as clear evidence that they are moving in the right direction.
What they need to do now is to drop their fetish for players who have cut their teeth in gridiron. Rugby is changing. If it were a product for a supermarket shelf, it would now sit alongside basketball. Once the Americans realise this, we're all in trouble!
Loose Pass is compiled by former Planet Rugby editor Andy Jackson
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