4 Jul 2013

Wood says Gatland should have picked O'Driscoll as captain

10:49 am on 4 July 2013

The former Lions hooker Keith Wood says the decision to drop centre Brian O'Driscoll for Saturday's deciding rugby Test with Australia is a "terrible mistake".

Ireland's O'Driscoll was expected to be named captain in Sam Warburton's absence, but has been omitted from the squad by head coach Warren Gatland.

Wood says it's the wrong call and Gatland's consistently tried to underpower" the issue of captaincy, saying it's not about leadership and not the most important thing.

Woods says having been on two Lions tours, the captaincy is the most important thing to him, with Martin Johnson an outstanding leader in his era, while O'Driscoll has been the clarion call once Paul O'Connell was injured.

The Welsh lock Alun Wyn Jones takes over the captaincy.

In total Gatland has made six changes from the team that lost the second test with the fit again Jamie Roberts partnering Jonathan Davies in the midfield.

The Wallabies named their team today with veteran loose forward George Smith expected to be called up.