'It cost us the series': Wales star bashes B&I Lions' tactics
SPOTLIGHT: Wales wing Louis Rees-Zammit says the British and Irish Lions implemented the wrong game plan against the Springboks earlier this year.
In an interview with The Guardian, the 20-year-old, who spent most of the series as a fringe player, said the tourists played into the Boks’ hands.
The Boks relied on a conservative approach by using their powerful forward pack to try and bash the B&I Lions into submission.
Jacques Nienaber’s side won the series 2-1 thanks to a late Morne Steyn penalty in the third Test, but Rees-Zammit believes things could have been different if the Lions played a more attacking game from the start of the Test series.
“I don’t want to be the b**ch, but I just thought we had the wrong game plan, to be honest,” Rees-Zammit told the Guardian.
“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 game plan and that cost us the series.”
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He added: “I obviously wasn’t suited to the game plan 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.
“I personally think we could have played any game plan. 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.”
Wales will face the Springboks in Cardiff on Saturday.
Source: The Guardian
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