The Lions must find a different way — Warren Gatland’s attempt to outmuscle South Africa is futile

So, the task for Warren Gatland this week could now not be clearer; come up with a game plan that revolves around something other than physicality and gain-line superiority if you are to steer the Lions to victory in this series.

What the second Test obliteration reminded us is that the Springboks will not be beaten – at least not over three matches – by any side on the planet which relies primarily on brute force.

By the final 10 minutes in Cape Town, some of the biggest beasts in the British and Irish game were being pushed around and manipulated like naïve age-group players.

The scale of the shift in dominance up front was, looking ahead to Saturday’s decider, quite chilling.

We must ask ourselves these questions.

Can we really see the Lions gaining the upper hand in the scrum?

Can we in our most outrageous dreams see the Lions launching a series of driving mauls that eat up yardage at the business end of the third winner-takes-all encounter?

Can they consistently beat the Springboks at the physical game?

It’s a no isn’t it? On each count.

The 22-17 first Test victory hinted that superior fitness levels among the Lions along with the best forwards from four nations might enable them to push their way to victory.

Take nothing away from Gatland’s men for going 1-0 up, but the brutality of the Springbok response made it look more like the aberration cynics feared.

So, unless the Lions execute a game-plan to perfection that embraces something completely different, or elements of something completely different, then the portents, quite frankly, aren’t good.

In 2013, when the Lions lost the second Test to Australia, Gatland remained confident that his team could win the series by reasserting themselves physically.

It worked against the Australians, with an early pushover try by prop Alex Corbisiero setting the tone for a wondrous evening in Sydney.

This time Gatland is going to need more.

Much more.

The best the Lions could come up with to worry the South African defence in this defeat was Dan Biggar launching high kicks. He did this from inside the 22 on one occasion in the first half, spurning an attacking position most top fly-halves in the world game would have dreamed for.

The Lions – like the Springboks – played next to no rugby. They offered nothing in attack via their backline. They played 10-man rugby – and in the process played right into South Africa’s hands.

Once the hosts had overcome their own nerves in a game that they simply could not countenance losing, they probably realised that to get themselves level they just had to revert to what they were good at – and they did.

A half-time reboot saw the world champions exert even more dominance at the breakdown, improve their lineout manifestly and start making the Lions back-pedal in mauls and at the scrum.

By the final quarter the Lions were being shoved off the park and forced to concede penalties every time they were put under pressure.

If Gatland didn’t already know it, he was handed a sobering reminder that, as Ronan O’Gara put it in his post-match analysis, ‘three, six, nine, 12 rugby’ just isn’t going to get you past the Springboks.

You wonder who’s going to get the tries that the Lions unquestionably need to come out on top next weekend, and how are they going to get them?

This current Springboks outfit is, even by the standards of traditional southern hemisphere excellence, one of the most organised and smothering sides in the history of the sport.

In reacting to the threats – or lack of them – being posed by the Lions at half-time of Saturday’s win, they also showed the depth of shrewdness and rugby intelligence among those driving them.

Up to what mattered most, the game, it had not been a great week for Springbok boss Rassie Erasmus.

However you look at it, his prolonged and forensic shredding of first Test referee Nic Berry was poorly conceived and deeply against the spirit of the game.

But Erasmus, for all his gracelessness in the media, showed, along with his management colleagues, just why he and his players are world champs.

The ledger says this series is now evenly-balanced, but in reality the manner of this defeat has tilted it on its axis – and tilted it the way of the Boks.

It’s Erasmus and his cohorts who hold the psychological aces now. A series which has seen them shorn of a vociferous home crowd and the age-old advantage of playing at altitude suddenly looks theirs to lose.

Unless Gatland can bring his magic touch to bear once more.

The former Wales supremo has confounded the sceptics before and does not need to prove his coaching greatness. But this week he finds himself in unusual territory.

Gatland used to bristle at the Warrenball tag which was planted on him from time to time throughout his Wales reign.

The implication was that he found it derogatory, a nod to a perceived brand of rugby that was crude and simplistic, not equipped with a so-called plan B and therefore unable to react to unfolding circumstances.

Now’s his chance to put that to bed it once and for all.

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If the Lions are to win this series then of course they’re going to have to hold their own physically.

But they’re also going to have to innovate in a style for their head coach isn’t necessarily renowned, which will also mean the need for significant personnel changes.

The Lions are firm underdogs, the hunters rather than the hunted.

And their success is going to depend on the element of surprise.

Over to you Warren.