Gatland’s announcement will tell Boks a lot about his approach

By the time Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber goes on SuperSport to discuss Thursday’s lunchtime British and Irish Lions squad announcement he would have had seven hours to digest it and should have a pretty clear idea of what to expect.

Which of the four Home Union countries will have the most representatives in coach Warren Gatland’s 36-man squad that will be announced live on Supersport Rugby and SS Blitz at 1pm? When that question is answered it will tell us everything about what kind of game Nienaber can expect his opponents to play in the iconic three test match series.

It will be between the new Six Nations champions Wales and the under-performers from the past season, the 2019 beaten World Cup finalists England. If it’s England players that predominate, Nienaber might find himself still with a few elements of doubt when he joins a panel to discuss the squad on SS Rugby and SS Blitz at 8pm. If it is Wales, he should have little doubt.

After what the Springboks did to them in the last Rugby World Cup final in Yokohama on 2 November 2019, Gatland might just figure that the individual England players won’t hold too much fear for their South African counterparts. Although his Wales team lost their semifinal against the eventual champions, it was a much closer run thing than the final.

WALES WORRY BOKS

More particularly, the Welsh game-plan, with a heavy accent on kicking and being patient in waiting for mistakes to be made that can be pounced on, worried the Boks a lot during the last years of Gatland’s long tenure at the Principality. If Alun-Wynn Jones is captaining, as he should be expected to be, and there is a liberal sprinkling of Welsh players, Nienaber should be anticipating what his team encountered from the Welsh during an extended losing sequence between the 2015 and 2019 World Cups.

A year ago, there wouldn’t have been much doubt that England would provide the most players, but much has changed since then, and the relegation of Saracens, the club many of the top England players play for, to the second-tier competition in their country because of a controversy over salary caps didn’t help those players or England coach Eddie Jones.

You need to play top rugby to be prepared to win at international level and perhaps some of Jones’ star players just never had enough of that. There again, Jones appeared to be trying to ape the Bok game-plan for the first year after the World Cup, and there has been a quantum shift from not just England but most teams. There has been a shift towards a more high tempo, all-embracing rugby across the world in the past few months, and that could factor into Gatland’s thinking too.

UNUSUAL SCENARIOS INCREASE PRESSURE ON COACH

The unusual scenarios that overshadow this particular Lions tour and the continued uncertainty over some aspects of it, such as the final itinerary, will make it more imperative than usual for Gatland to get his selections spot on.

It was already going to be a shorter tour than usual, just eight matches, but the Covid environment may yet dictate that it is whittled down to even shorter than that. There has been talk of there being just two games before the tourists go into the three tests. Although the Lions will play a game before they leave the northern hemisphere, that doesn’t leave Gatland and the players with much time to sort out the test combinations.

Indeed, it may even dictate that he has to select established combinations, players that know each other through playing for club or country, rather than mould combinations through playing them together on tour.

The likely red tape that will be in place around Covid will be an added consideration that will dictate the New Zealander needs to get his extended squad selection spot on. If there are quarantine requirements when players fly to South Africa, it won’t make it easy to call for replacements. If a replacement is called for on the eve of the first test, for instance, it will only be just before the final test that he arrives in the country.

CAPTAIN LIKELY TO BE RARE RETURNEE

There has been much speculation overseas over who will captain the Lions - Wales’ skipper Jones or England’s Maro Itoje. That speculation has lessened just recently, with Jones expected to be named as captain, and it makes sense. Not only was Jones a captain for Wales under Gatland, and a successful one too, he is also a veteran of Lions tours dating back to the last Lions visit here back in 2009.

Jones was young then and Gatland was head coach Ian McGeechan’s assistant coach but the pair would have learned a lot then and it is rare these days, with the 12-year gap between tours to one country (it used to be six before the Wallabies became a Lions destination), for players or coaches to be part of two trips to the same country.

*Nienaber will be joined in the studio on Thursday night by former Springboks Jean de Villiers, Schalk Burger and Hanyani Shimange as well as former British and Irish Lions Jeremy Guscott, who South Africans will remember as the man who dropped the goal that broke Bok hearts in the 1997 series. Will Greenwood, a member of the 2003 England World Cup winning squad, will also be part of the discussion.

But first comes the announcement that will be broadcast live at 1pm.