Futile art of early selecting
EVERY FOUR YEARS, the annual bunfight that is the Six Nations takes on an added significance. This is one of those years, and barstools in pubs across the country are already witnessing the incessant rumbling of rugby men arguing over who should go with the Lions to New Zealand this summer.
A particularly rugby-obsessed pal who should get out more reckons that he’s kept an informal tally of historic pre-Five/Six Nations predictions of Lions parties compared with the tour party that actually departs these shores, and that less than 50 per cent of players in everyone’s potential Lions squad before the Championship starts actually end up getting a Lions blazer.
And given that several members of the party are genuinely nailed-on, if he’s right – and I can quite believe it – that makes predicting Lions squads before the Six Nations a futile exercise.
You can see why the process is so fraught with difficulty. In a recent piece for one of the more rugby-literate national newspapers, the squad was stacked full of Welshmen and Englishmen, with a small Irish representation and a token Scot. I happen to know the writer, a Welshman who lives and works in England, and therein lies the rub – when it comes to fans and journalists, perspective is everything, and when it comes to the Lions it often feels like we live in the land of the one-eyed.
It’s not a syndrome limited to those on the outside, either. Clive Woodward proved as much 12 years ago, the last time the Lions travelled to New Zealand. Few
Even now memories of that seemingly never-ending car crash of a tour sends a shiver down my spine; in particular the unbearable hubris of rugby illiterate Alastair Campbell being drafted into the squad as if it were possible to spin your way to victory…’
gleeful Kiwis or embittered Celts will have forgotten the way he favoured English third-raters over Celtic secondraters to an embarrassing and ultimately catastrophic extent.
Even now memories of that seemingly never-ending car crash of a tour sends a shiver down my spine; in particular the unbearable hubris of rugby illiterate Alastair Campbell being drafted into the squad as if it were possible to spin your way to victory…
In all, Woodward’s 2005 party contained 23 English Lions and a further three came out to join the party, while just 10 of that year’s Grand Slam Wales team made the plane. Incredibly, Woodward selected English players who had already retired from international rugby [Neil Back, Lawrence Dallaglio], Englishmen who had been injured and played no rugby [Richard Hill, Jonny Wilkinson, Phil Vickery, Mike Tindall], uncapped Englishmen [Andrew Sheridan] and Englishmen who weren’t even first choice for their country [Graham Rowntree, Julian White, Andy Titterall, Ollie Smith] in the most recent game.
Given the preponderence of Englishmen, anyone would have thought that they went like a steam train in the 2005 Six Nations when in fact England finished fourth, beating only Scotland and Italy.
In Woodward’s defence, his selection wasn’t just about parochialism, even if it felt like it at the time. With Lions tours becoming more and more truncated, every Lions coach faces the temptation to pick players who understand how he wants them to play, and whose character and capabilities he is familiar with.
Certainly, Graham Henry and Warren Gatland are just two recent Lions coaches to be accused of having chosen their test team before they left Blighty.
If Woodward took that reasoning so far past its logical conclusion that he’d have needed the world’s most powerful telescope to see sense, other Lions coaches have also been afflicted by less obviously delusional and one-eyed selections. Lions coach Ian McGeechan, a Scot, tried taking on Australia in the first test in 1989 with a side featuring only four Englishmen [England were the highestplaced Home Union side in that year’s Five Nations, with Scotland a fraction behind]. Only when the Lions were well beaten in the did he pick eight Englishmen – including man of the series Mike Teague – and go on to win the
remaining two tests.
That pattern was, by and large, in place long before 1989 and has influenced Lions selections to a greater or lesser extent ever since. Although there have been exceptions, generally speaking the Lions closest to fulfilling their potential have been those that have been coached by the national coach from the dominant nation of the time [Carwyn James allconquering side to New Zealand in 1971 and Warren Gatland’s to Australia four years ago are the two most obvious examples] while the worst are those where the coach is from a poorlyperforming nation yet still picks a bucketful of his own countrymen.
In any tour where the coach is perceived to unreasonably favour his own countrymen, it can be disastrous. Phil Bennett’s benighted 1977 tourists are the obvious example, but legendary Scottish and Lions coach Jim Telfer’s whitewashed 1983 tour to New Zealand was fatally undermined by parochial considerations when he was constantly outvoted on selection issues by Lions skipper Ciaran Fitzgerald and manager Willie-John McBride, both of whom are Irish. [Interestingly, this goes against one of the most famous Lions dictums, that the best captains and coaches are Irish, because they are less parochial than the Welsh, better-liked than the English, and more easy-going than the Scots].
What may [or may not] be an interesting trip down memory lane has real implications for the forthcoming Lions tour. Gatland, the Wales coach who will lead the Lions to New Zealand, has form on this front, having packed his side with 10 Welshmen for the vital last test in 2013, and having created a storm by leaving out Brian O’Driscoll. Fortunately for Gatland it worked, but it’s safe to say that Gatland is as likely to feature on BOD’s Christmas card list as Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu.
Interestingly, Gatland makes no secret of the fact that the selection process is haphazard and prone to be influenced by the make-up of the coaching team, which in New Zealand will be led by Welsh backs coach Rob Howley and Englishmen Steve Borthwick and Andy Farrell [ yep, that’s right, Owen’s dad and the man insiders credit with making England’s last World Cup campaign such a success].
When Gatland failed to persuade Scot Gregor Townsend and Scotland attack coach Jason O’Halloran to form part of his Lions coaching team, his reaction was to suggest that it might impact negatively upon the number of Scots selected.
“The ideal scenario from my point of view would be having someone from Scotland to give some representation, to push the Scottish cause, to push some of their players,” he said. “That’s important. Someone from within the Scottish system will know their players a lot better than we do, they’ll know the characters and the individuals and potentially push them on a 50/50 decision.”
Wales will have no such issues. Despite the fact that the men from the valleys are currently far from the best of the Home Nations, their players will have no shortage of advocates. Wales are extraordinarily lucky to be playing England and Ireland in Cardiff given how poorly they played while being thrashed by all and sundry in New Zealand, being hammered by Australia in Cardiff, and then underwhelming in laboured wins over Argentina, Japan and South Africa.
Hell, even Scotland reckon they’ll beat Wales this year, and on the balance of probabilities they’re probably right.
Where Wales were top dogs four years ago, this time there are two undisputed lead nations. Under Eddie Jones, England have equalled their record of 14 successive wins, while Ireland’s win over the All Blacks in Chicago and their near miss in Dublin has established them as a side of genuine quality. Certainly both are way more impressive than Wales, which presents a raft of issues.
The first is the way in which the side plays, which four years ago was basically governed by the sheer number of Welsh players in the squad and test side. In theory, there are still enough outstanding Welshmen – such as former Lions skippers Sam Warburton and Alun-Wyn Jones, plus wing George North and the man of the series from 2013, Leigh Halfpenny – to form the core of the side. That, though, would be a huge mistake.
The temptation will certainly be there, and it will take a lot of resisting, but Gatland needs to do so because virtually none of the real playmakers in his side are likely to be Welsh.
Form and injuries can change a lot between now and April, but on current form England’s Dylan Hartley or Ireland’s Rory Best will own the hooker’s shirt, Billy Vunipola is the best No 8, the Irish partnership of Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton are comfortably the best option ay halfback, and Scotland fullback Stuart Hogg is the man for the No 15 jersey.
When he puts together the squad after the Six Nations, Gatland will be tempted to favour the players he knows from Wales, even if only to have them on hand in case things go awry. But trying to win a Lions series in New Zealand requires something far more ambitious than that.
This autumn showed that the best of the northern hemisphere are closer to the standard of the southern hemisphere’s finest than they have been for years; Gatland’s task is to turn that promise into a reality – and to do it using these islands’ most on-form players, no matter where they come from.
Interestingly, Gatland makes no secret of the fact that the selection process is haphazard and prone to be influenced by the make-up of the coaching team, which in New Zealand will be led by Welsh backs coach Rob Howley and Englishmen Steve Borthwick and Andy Farrell.’