Sean O'Brien blames Lions management for not winning against All Blacks
Sean O'Brien is not pleased with how the players were handled in New Zealand
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Ireland international Sean O'Brien believes the poor management by Warren Gatland and his support staff was the reason for British and Irish Lions not winning the series against All Blacks in their recent tour of New Zealand.
The 30-year-old featured in all three Tests for the Lions against New Zealand including their historic win in Wellington with the series ending in a 1-1 draw following the final game in Auckland that ended in a 15-15 scoreline.
O'Brien believes their preparations ahead of the first and third Test at Eden Park in Auckland wasn't ideal and slammed the coaching panel for overtraining the players before high-intensity games against Steve Hansen's men.
"To be honest, I’d be pretty critical of it because I think we should have won the tour and we probably should have won it comfortably," O’Brien said in an interview with Newstalk.
"There’s the best players in the world on a Lions tour. I know you are playing the best team in the world but with the quality and strength in depth we had, we probably should have won the tour.
"It wasn’t down to fatigue. It was probably management a bit, in terms of how our weeks went.
"The first week, we definitely over-trained on the Thursday and maybe the coaches were panicking a little bit about getting the information into us. On the first week [of the first Test], we had a triple [session] day, [the] lads’ legs were heavy on the Thursday and we were playing the All Blacks on Saturday.
"There was probably no need for that but it’s just the way it was managed. We had said it, at the time, and they pulled back a bit."
