Louis Rees-Zammit has made the shock decision to leave Gloucester with immediate effect and “pursue his dream” of a career in the NFL. Photo: Rodger Bosch/AFP
Rees-Zammit: WRONG tactics cost Lions against Springboks
Louis Rees-Zammit believes the British & Irish Lions got their gameplan wrong in the series defeat to the Springboks earlier this year.
Louis Rees-Zammit has made the shock decision to leave Gloucester with immediate effect and “pursue his dream” of a career in the NFL. Photo: Rodger Bosch/AFP
Rees-Zammit only played a limited role in the three-Test series, with coach Warren Gatland backing South Africa-born Duhan van der Merwe on the wing instead.
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Although the Lions began the series with a memorable victory in the opening Test, the Springboks battled back to clinch successive victories and a famous 2-1 series win.
For the majority of the Test series, the Lions appeared determined to match the Boks at their own game, relying heavily on conservative tactics and a prolific kicking strategy.
In the decisive third Test, though, the touring team did look most threatening when attack-minded Finn Russell came on to replace Dan Biggar after the Welsh flyhalf had suffered an injury early on.
In an interview with The Guardian, Rees-Zammit has now openly admitted that he felt the Lions had got it wrong.
“I personally think we could have played any gameplan. We had wingers with pace, we had wingers with physicality, we had centres with pace and we had a range of 10s who could have done anything. That was probably the worst bit. Everyone thought we could have done a bit more in terms of playing. You heard it from fans and people who weren’t there. They just wish we’d played a bit more rugby, as opposed to sitting back and trying to play their game. We tried to stick with our plan but it didn’t end up working.”
“I don’t want to be the bitch but I just thought we had the wrong gameplan, to be honest,” Rees-Zammit added. “If we’d played a bit of rugby I think we could have given them a better test but we ended up falling into their gameplan and that cost us the series.”
Although the speedster made an impact in the tour games prior to the Test series, he conceded that he got the feeling he would end up being surplus to requirements against the Boks.
“I obviously wasn’t suited to the gameplan they went with. If we’d played more attacking rugby I’d like to think I’d have been in with a chance but they wanted physicality. It was ‘who can kick more?’ That’s the last thing I wanted. I wanted ball in space, which was exactly what Finn Russell wanted as well.”
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