Update: 8:22 am – Lions tour manager John Spencer says New Zealanders need to respect Gatland’s achievement in building a Lions team capable of standing up to the World Champions in their own back yard.
“I think his achievements on this tour have opened up the future for him.
I think he is the best coach in the world and I think he has proved that with our guys.”
Warren Gatland said he is proud of what the Lions have achieved.
“I think both sides would feel frustrated (but) I suppose we will reflect and say given the schedule and how tough the tour was to have come to New Zealand and drawn the series we will be pretty proud of that.”
“Everyone wrote us off and people were talking about a 3-0 whitewash. This group of players have shown a tremendous amount of character.”
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen labelled the tourists as “very good” before the tour and consistently described them as one of the best teams to have travelled to New Zealand “in a very long time”.
Gatland put the uninspiring first seven days of the tour down to jet lag and a lack of preparation time and it was an issue tour manager John Spencer reiterated on Sunday when he said the side would have achieved the series win if they had another week together.
The team actually started to find their feet in the second week with an impressive 12-3 victory over the seven-time Super Rugby champion Canterbury Crusaders, dispelling many of the early concerns and they only got better throughout the tour.
The victory over the Crusaders, who are still unbeaten in Super Rugby this season, also gave New Zealand audiences their first look at assistant coach Andy Farrell’s impressive defensive system that many other teams will now look to adapt.
Many in New Zealand complained the visitors were pushing the offside line to the limit, but also accepted that it was not against the rules until the referee said so.
“We are going to get more of it,” Hansen said of the system that negated the fast-pace New Zealand sides like to play. “Everyone who watched that has learned (and) that will force us to get better at adapting to it.”
Hansen felt his side had found a way to beat it by the tour’s end and created numerous opportunities on Saturday they did not capitalise on.
He also blooded several new players during the series, with Jordie Barrett, Ngani Laumape and Rieko Ioane only highlighting the conveyer belt of talent at the coach’s disposal as he builds his 2019 World Cup squad.
The tour was also undoubtedly an economic success with more than 20,000 Lions fans travelling to the country.
With British media reporting future tours were in doubt, the legacy the team and their fans left dispelled that for the immediate future.
“It was great to see the way the nation got behind the … series,” New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew said on Sunday.
“Any questions on the future of the Lions series should be firmly put to bed given the extraordinary success of the past six weeks.”
-RNZ
