Sean O’Brien Was Damn Right To Let Everyone Know What Went Wrong With The Lions

Refreshingly honest.

Sean O’Brien has sent shockwaves around the rugby community with his recent comments about this summer’s Lions tour and in particular the coaches.

O’Brien believes that they could, and should have won the tour and has slammed the preparations in the build-up to the Test matches, suggesting Gatland and his coaching team panicked and overtrained the players.

He also singled out attack coach Rob Howley, stating that Owen Farrell and Jonny Sexton ended up taking over due to his inability to stamp his authority and impose his game plan on the squad.

Depending on where you look, people are either applauding or downright slamming O’Brien for coming about and speaking his mind. I for one side with the former. O’Brien is fully entitled to his opinion, and to be quite honest, Gatland and his team probably should have done a better job.

If you look back at the series, there’s absolutely no doubt it was there for the taking. The All Blacks were in no way at their best and Gatland had arguably the best Lions squad in the history of the professional era to pick from.

Rob Howley was in no way good enough to be leading the Lions’ attack against New Zealand, and was there by default, rather than choice as for some reason – nobody else wanted the bloody job… or so we’re told.

We’re also sick and tired of hearing interviews from current players that sound like they’ve come straight from a media training handbook. The usual bullshit, one-line answers are becoming tiresome.

O’Brien has told us exactly how it was, and for the most part he was probably right. I’m sure he’s not the only player on that tour that felt the same way.

When you send a team made up of the best players available from Britain & Ireland, why not send the best coaches from Britain & Ireland too? The players can only do so much. In order to keep improving, we need more players like Sean O’Brien to speak their mind.

The Irishman isn’t doing this for personal gain, he’s clearly doing it because he cherishes that famous red jersey and wants future teams to have every opportunity at winning a series. Is that not what everyone wants?