The British & Irish Lions tour of New Zealand first plummeted to new depths before All Blacks assistant coach Ian Foster rose above it all and restored an element of sanity and calm.
The New Zealand Herald aped a previous back page lead which portrayed Michael Cheika as a clown by doing the same with Warren Gatland alongside a heading: 'If the nose fits, Warren.'
Inside, a piece under the heading: "Gatland's absolutely blown it', and following on from "implying that the All Blacks set out to deliberately injury Lions halfback Conor Murray, " the article declares: "Implying that the All Blacks are dirty is the unforgivable sin. Questioning their playing ethics and morals is a line that can't be crossed."
So this is this mornings New Zealand Herald back page in response Gatland remarks on All Blacks charge on Conor Murray. Nice artwork 2b fair pic.twitter.com/hgvhppv4wn
— Paul Collins (@paulcollinstipp) June 27, 2017
When asked for his take on that portrayal, Foster at least had the decency to admit: “I wouldn’t like that.” Beyond that, he wouldn’t discuss this particular issue.
As for targeting Murray, Foster said: “Oh, look we definitely want to put a lot of pressure on their kickers, just like they put a lot of pressure on out kickers. They charged four down, so they probably did a better job than us. I think to take it any further than that is just a bit silly.”
The line of questioning didn’t particularly appeal to Foster, who preferred to look ahead to the second test, but given he and Gatland were teammates in a relative golden era for Waikato and coached together with the Chiefs, it was inevitable.
“You’re asking me a lot of questions about what Warren thinks. I think you should probably ask Warren what he thinks. I’m not trying to be smart, but I’m pretty focussed on what we did, and surprise, surprise, Saturday is going to be a massive test, and I’ll just re-iterate that.
“We’ve had two weeks of a lot of noise early in the weeks, and it seems to keep you guys pretty excited, which is good. But at the end of the day our job as coaches is to put all that stuff to one side. And we expect it. I guess we probably give a little bit, they give a little bit, and that’s all part of things when stakes are high. So he’s doing what he thinks he needs to do to prepare his team, and we’ll do what we need to do.”
As for all the noise, Foster said: “You get used to it. It’s part of the environment when you play a big series and this is a big series. For us, we have been looking forward to this for a long, long time, and we know that it’s the Lions. And it’s generated massive interest here and overseas, so there’s a lot at stake. Everyone is looking for an edge. People are just trying to find that edge in different sorts of ways, and I wouldn’t read too much more into it than just that.”
They have gone their separate ways as coaches, and so meet less often, while the relationship may have been a little soured over this tour, but Foster said he’d love to catch up with Gatland and the Lions coaches for a beer when the dust has settled.
“I wouldn’t say we see each other regularly ‘cos he lives on the other side of the world. But Trudi and the kids live just down the road from us in Hamilton, so whenever he’s back I’ll often see Gatty. The job means we haven’t caught up with each other a lot, but I had a yak with him in the middle of the park at Eden Park before the game.
“You kind of understand the pressures everyone’s under when you’re doing similar jobs. He’s doing what he thinks is best for his team. We’re doing what we think is best for our team but it’s important we catch up and have a yarn to people as mates. That’ll happen after the third Test.”
Asked specifically if he’d have a beer or two with Gatland, Foster smiled and said: “I would love to. And I’m sure we will. We are all on this too. We are competitive. This is a huge series for us, for them, everyone is trying to put everything on the line, everyone is trying to get an edge or upset the other team in whatever way it is, but at the end of the day, we’ll go hammer and tongs at each other and at the end of the third Test, we’ll sit down and have a quiet beer with each other sand have a good yack about it.”
The All Blacks are favourites to win the series now, although Foster warned: “They will be disappointed in some aspects; the physical side is probably an area. So you’d have to assume they’re going to come out strong in that area, and I’d say a continuation of a lot of the things that they did actually do because they stressed us in some areas. It was a huge game last week, wasn’t it? It was tense and whilst the scoreline flattered us a little at the end we knew we were in a massive arm wrestle.”
It’s not only Gatland that he respects as foe in this “fantastic” series. “I don’t think it’s so much about him, it’s what we expect from that group of players and management. We know Andy Farrell and the likes really well. They are tough men, competitive men. We’ve seen England play, Ireland play, all those teams, and there is a lot of pride on that group and going 1-0 down will hurt and there will definitely be a response. But that ain’t going to surprise us because we are going to have to respond too.
“When emotions get high in big games, it’s a matter of who can match the physicality side and bring that but also have clear enough heads that we can make good decisions and see opportunities when they come. That’s probably something we did quite well last week and we’ve got to do it again this week.”
The All Blacks have also been buoyed by New Zealand’s victory in the America’s Cup, which prompted Foster to cheerily declare: “Congratulations to them. It’s got the nation pretty excited about sailing. So it’s pretty exciting to be a Kiwi.”
