Where have this lot been?
The Lions are taking rugby back to the era which hatched Hilda Ogden’s ducks.
Up until last night, this Lions tour has uncomfortably reminded me of Hilda Ogden — Coronation Street’s famed charlady with the fingernailson-a-blackboard voice, the pinny and headscarf.
She hung china ducks flying up a wall at home and had a mural which she loved but always called a ‘muriel’. Her most lasting line was: “I’ve come into this ‘ouse, more times than I can remember — cold, wet, tired, not a penny in me purse and the sight of them ducks and that muriel, well, they’ve kept me away from the gas tap and that’s a fact.”
If it hadn’t been for last night’s surprisingly expansive Lions’ effort, I would have been at the gas tap ’n all.
I hate the other stuff — the Lions’ strangulation of opposing sides, incessant kicking, defensive line speed (aka offside half the time, as is their opposition) and their almost total unwillingness to play rugby that might be worth watching.
Last night’s test made you wonder: where have these Lions been? The strangulation mode, well, the rugby player in me respects the Lions’ power and technique. But it’s a bit like admiring the Boston Strangler’s biceps: the tools to get the job done are there, but the application is repugnant.
And it takes rugby back to the era which hatched Hilda Ogden’s ducks.
Hopefully the All Blacks win the test series, not just because of national pride but because of the future of the game.
I’m not quite sure what the Lions are . . . but the future of the game? Yeah, okay — just like Britain is the future of the European Union or the Morse Code is the future of communications.
It’s all very well for Sir Graham Henry to tell us off for belittling the Lions’ playing style; he made the valid point the Lions can only win if they play the way they normally do — and that they play the way they do because they play in different conditions.
The first part is right; the kickchase-squeeze-penalty game is probably the only way this Lions outfit can beat the All Blacks — with chokehold rugby, parasitically feeding off mistakes as the opponents (and the game) run out of oxygen — as opposed to fashioning something themselves. And they play this way because it rains a bit and is cold? Give me a break. Last night gave the lie to that. The other stuff is Cynicism City full of Negative Nigels. They win scrums, not to release their backs but to win penalties. They shout on the opponents’ throw to spoil lineout communication. Backs are used only when the grunters have run out of ideas. It’s entirely legit and stupendously boring. Winning is its only solace.
Two years ago, All Black coach Steve Hansen went on a World Cup scouting mission to the north, taking in the Irish victory over England in Dublin and Wales v France in Paris.
He came away saying: “We are trying to get defensive lines up really quickly but I think we’ve probably gone too far. No one is prepared to take the risk (to run the ball) because they are going to get belted behind the advantage line.”
His cry was to tear up the complex and pernickety rule book and start again, giving rise to a game where the fans could actually follow what was happening.
Not enough tries were being scored, fans were being turned off and he said of the 2015 World Cup: “There will be millions and millions of people watching it and then all you’re going to see is people kicking goals. If we want to encourage people to watch the game, then scoring tries does that.”
In addition, the illegal abomination that is the rolling maul, the forgotten responsibility of enforcing the offside rule, the mess of the tackled ball area; all must be tidied up so teams can play. In doing so, we must preserve the ability of sides to win a different way — by keeping it tight, retaining possession and playing lineout, scrum and kick, as the Lions do.
But this is also about keeping the game alive, giving fans something they want to see and encouraging a style that grows the game, not returns it to the 1960s. Nothing will change, of course. The Northern Hemisphere fills up stadiums with thousands who feast on their static, set-piece rugby. They can tell us to naff off as they have the numbers, the money and thus the power.
Instead of witnessing artistry, they watch paint dry. Hopefully, the Lions and British and Irish rugby will learn to play more rugby the way they did last night — only better. Maybe they will even win the series in strangulation mode. But, in doing that, they don’t half remind you of Hilda Ogden’s ducks, forever flying up the same wall towards a ceiling they will never reach.