Five takeaways from the British & Irish Lions v Japan

Adam Kyriacou

Following the British and Irish Lions’ 28-10 win over Japan on Saturday, here’s our five takeaways from the game at Murrayfield.

Worst case

Alun Wyn Jones’ is the totem of this British and Irish Lions side and the news that he will remain in Wales to have further scans on a damaged shoulder is a devastating blow to both the strength and management of this Lions side.

Warren Gatland was clear to point out they were unsure of the scope of the injury at this time, and there was potential for him to return to the tour, but at this moment, the Lions have lost their leader.

The facts are he will stay in Wales for further assessment, that he has a slim chance of rejoining the tour as a player and right now, Gatland is looking at his options in both leadership and replacement players.

Nothing could have dealt the Class of 2021 a bigger blow than this, and despite the Lions’ win, all of the headlines of the match will revolve around the great Welshman’s injury.

Curate’s egg

A win is a win, as they say, and a positive start in the first fixture of any Lions campaign is essential to tour momentum. But let’s just be honest for one second, this was an edgy and uncoordinated performance from the Lions, and one that relied upon the sheer match sharpness of 23 players who’ve played a lot of rugby versus a Japanese side that have been playing various standards in many different parts of the globe and have spent an even shorter time together than their opponents.

There were some real positives to take away from this performance; Robbie Henshaw and Bundee Aki took their Ireland understanding into a Lions unit and worked well off a sumptuous display at 10 from Dan Biggar, whilst Tadhg Furlong was very unlucky not to be made player of the match in a typically rumbustious display, with the other starting prop Rory Sutherland looking technically outstanding in all of his tight work.

Japan gelling

The big worry is that as they started to gel. Japan won the second half 10-7 and put some serious pressure on the Lions line, with the best player on the pitch, Kotaro Matsushima, creating havoc from every part of the field, something that won’t have gone unnoticed by Cheslin Kolbe. They competed brilliantly at the ruck, hit contact with dominance, and with huge impact from both Tevita Tatafu and Kazuki Himeno, they were the better side for the last 30 minutes of the game.

They also caused no end of problems for the Lions in disrupting or sacking the driving maul, getting low to defend the catch and drive, whilst at scrum time, after coming off second best in the first half, they improved immensely and exerted extreme pressure on Lions replacement prop Wyn Jones, who really struggled to come to terms with the lowness and power of the Brave Blossoms scrum, conceding a couple of penalties.

They’ll be delighted with their performance and proved to be worthy opponents, completely justifying World Rugby and the Home Unions’ decision to award them this fantastic reward for their progress.

Headaches

The biggest concerns that Gatland and the coaching team will have are twofold; firstly, physicality at ruck and contact – there was a distinct lack of understanding of clearing and pillaring rucks, both in attack and defence. Conor Murray worked manfully with sluggish ball, but at times the clearing out was so poor by the forwards that Liam Williams and Aki became the most effective ruck enforcers in the first half. Sure, this side hasn’t played much together and they lost the only openside flanker in their 23 early on, but the issues were so clear that swifter action was needed to secure quick ball and floor dominance.

Secondly, there will be a lot of discussion about the defence in the next week or so. The Lions adopted a 13-1-1 system playing with high wings and leaving the full-back in a pendulum role. This works well in principle providing you have one or two players leading the early blitz, which didn’t appear to happen. Again, losing your openside doesn’t assist matters, but with the system the Lions were employing, the rush in the middle is key, otherwise you become a back-foot soak defence, which is precisely what happened for large portions of the game, especially the last 30 minutes. A soak is fine too, providing the openside wing is using the 16th man (touchline) as the extra defender but too many times the Lions openside wing drifted off the flanks, to allow Japan to go outside, with no further line of D left due to the formation. Nevertheless, it’s all work in progress and the mistakes were so obvious one would assume they’ll be quick to be identified.

Looking forward

The Lions must regroup and regenerate. There are going to be changes, with the captaincy likely to go to Owen Farrell or Ken Owens. Gatland has confirmed that a replacement will be named on Sunday with a couple of candidates to be considered.

But they must not lose sight of the good things they did in this game – the Irish lads were magnificent all day and set the standards in defence and attack, with both wings doing well going forward, if so less well on the back foot.

Biggar too put a big marker down to the Test 10 and was magnificent in terms of speed of thinking, variety of point of attack and sheer pragmatism in getting his side forward.

But right now, after only 80 minutes of rugby, Lions 2021 have almost been derailed – they say nobody is irreplaceable, but the sheer personality and charisma of captain Jones will leave a massive cloud over the tour party as they depart to South Africa in 24 hours time.

by James While