Gatland’s selections will be a true test

IF it was Jacques Nienaber who was scratching his head after the first Test, it was Warren Gatland who left Cape Town Stadium on Saturday night with his thinking cap firmly on.

Actually, after witnessing his British & Irish Lions team’s secondhalf implosion and utter failure to deal with the aerial bombardment from the Springboks, Gatland’s mind would have been made up on some positions before the final whistle had sounded.

Gatland’s back three for the second Test – fullback Stuart Hogg and wings Duhan van der Merwe and Anthony Watson – could not deal with the high ball and between them spilled nine up-and-unders, with one of Hogg’s blunders leading to a try by Lukhanyo Am.

Suffice to say there is likely to be a change at fullback with Welshman

Liam Williams in all probability getting the nod.

Hogg was a surprise choice in the first place to many a critic and there was plenty of support for Williams.

After the first Test, Gatland made a change in the key position of scrumhalf, recalling veteran Conor Murray for the in-form Scot, Ali Price.

The latter had played really well in the first Test, but Gatland opted for the vast experience of Murray to help handle the expected South African onslaught.

The South Africans duly did their combative thing, and there was not a thing that Irishman Murray could do about it.

Price is a nippier scrumhalf and Gatland wants his team to play with tempo and width, so swopping him for Murray would make sense.

And while Gatland is doing that, he might as well pick Price’s Scotland partner Finn Russell.

Dan Biggar’s most impressive work in the second Test was to fling himself to the ground in a football-style collapse to try and milk a penalty when the Cheslin Kolbecaused brawl was at its height.

Biggar passed the ball just three times in the match and that is at odds with the Lions’ tour manifesto of playing with skill, guile and pace.

Russell is a renowned attacker and Gatland’s backline coach Gregor Townsend will certainly be advancing the claims of his Scottish No 10.

A Scotland halfback combination of Price and Russell makes sense and will give the Lions’ backline some whip.

It is not as easy to guess what Gatland might do to fix a pack that by the third quarter was getting a pasting last weekend.

That probably had more to do with his replacements because in the first half there was set-scrum parity, while the Lions had the edge in the line-outs.

Then Lood de Jager came on and sorted the latter out for the Springboks, while the Bok back-up props destroyed their Lions counterparts.