{"id":14264,"date":"2012-09-05T03:42:03","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T01:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/rugby-gatland-seeks-his-own-piece-of-british-lions-folklore\/"},"modified":"2012-09-05T03:42:03","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T01:42:03","slug":"rugby-gatland-seeks-his-own-piece-of-british-lions-folklore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-gatland-seeks-his-own-piece-of-british-lions-folklore\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Gatland seeks his own piece of British Lions folklore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Josh Reich<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">LONDON, Sept 4<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; As a wide-eyed youngster in New<br \/>\nZealand, Warren Gatland could not believe the touring British<br \/>\nand Irish Lions managed to beat the All Blacks in 1971.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Now, more than 40 years later, Gatland has the opportunity<br \/>\nto create his own memorable achievement when he leads the Lions<br \/>\non their 2013 tour to Australia.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Gatland&#8217;s appointment on Tuesday as Lions head coach, a<br \/>\npromotion from his assistant role under Ian McGeechan in South<br \/>\nAfrica in 2009, came as no surprise given his exploits as Wales<br \/>\ncoach, which include two grand slams (2008 and 2012) and a<br \/>\nsemi-final appearance at last year&#8217;s World Cup.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The decision would have been finalised four months ago but<br \/>\nfor a freak accident in which Gatland fractured both his heels<br \/>\nwhile on holiday in his native New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I only really started walking in the last three or four<br \/>\nweeks but I&#8217;m getting better every day and hopefully in the next<br \/>\nmonth or so I&#8217;ll be 100 percent,&#8221; he told reporters at Tuesday&#8217;s<br \/>\nnews conference in London.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Gatland&#8217;s challenge is to lead the Lions to their first test<br \/>\nseries triumph since South Africa in 1997.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>ENORMOUS PRIDE<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Josh Reich LONDON, Sept 4 (Reuters) &#8211; As a wide-eyed youngster in New Zealand, Warren Gatland could not believe the touring British and Irish Lions managed to beat the All Blacks in 1971. Now, more than 40 years later, Gatland has the opportunity to create his own memorable achievement when he leads the Lions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-14264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}