“Someone Has Betrayed Someone’s Trust” – Warren Gatland To Take Action Following Lions Team Leak
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Not impressed.
Head coach Warren Gatland looked far from impressed when he was asked about his British and Irish Lions team for the first Test leaking online yesterday evening ahead of this morning’s announcement.
The entire starting lineup was leaked along with the replacements bench bar one difference this morning with Liam Williams on the bench instead of Iain Henderson as Gatland went for a more traditional 5-3 split.
Gatland is unaware of how the team managed to leak out but indicated that it had to come from a player or member of staff – intentionally or not.
The New Zealander went for a very leftfield selection and was understandably annoyed with the leak, adding that he will be releasing the team next week as soon as it is announced to the players.
“Yeah, I don’t know how that happened,” Gatland told us when asked about the last night’s team leak.
“It wasn’t 100% right but obviously, someone has leaked that out, whether that’s on purpose or accidentally – or someone has betrayed someone’s trust.
“Whether that’s a player or a staff member…
“What I’ll do next week is just name the team to the players, and then name the team to the press straight away.”
The likes of Conor Murray, Liam Williams, Tadhg Beirne, and Liam Williams will have to make do with a spot on the bench on Saturday but Gatland made it clear that they still have a very important role to play.
“It’s not just about the starting 15 and looking at South Africa and particularly up front and the bench, we wanted to make sure the balance was right and how important our bench is going to be with experienced players coming off the bench,” Gatland said.
“You’ve got players like Conor, Liam Williams, and Owen Farrell who are disappointed not to be involved but having that experience, they will have a chance to come on and hopefully close the game out for us.
“So we’re really happy with the depth of our bench and how important they’re going to be for us on Saturday.”
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