Reduced tour will ruin Lions
The death knell of the British and Irish Lions was sounded last week. And there was not a peep of protest at their passing, not a scintilla of regret that a great institution, one that helps rugby reach out to a whole new constituency every four years, one that inspires kids and freshens palettes grown jaded by the same old fare, has been reduced to an add-on thought.
You want six weeks for a proper tour, eh? Tough. We grandees got around a table in San Francisco a couple of years ago and came up with a schedule that shoehorns you into an abbreviated slot, so get used to it. It is five weeks, eight games, only two midweek fixtures, and that is your lot.
That lot is a betrayal of the essence of the Lions. That lot is perverse, self-serving and shortsighted. The pared-down-to-beyondbare-bones itinerary will be the ruination of the Lions as players realise that if they are not of immediate first-team material then their selection goose is effectively cooked before departure. They will be tackle-bag holders and nothing else.
It is a Lions tour in name only if each and every one of those chosen for the trip do not wholly believe that they are in with a proper shout of running out against the Springboks at the 90,000 Soccer City stadium on July 24, 2021.
They need to press their claims, they need to show that they can form partnerships, at lock, in the back row, in midfield, wherever. We can all write a test XV on a fag paper now. Only Warren Gatland, though, can do it properly. Let us not reduce him or the Lions to fag-paper status.
There is scant consideration given to those ideals in this schedule. Gatland described himself as ‘‘thrilled’’ with the itinerary, a distorted soundbite in that it referred to the build towards altitude that allows the Lions a chance of acclimatisation.
Gatland has been bemoaning the lack of preparation time since he was first involved in the management team in 2009, committing those thoughts to paper as head coach in Australia in 2013 and again in New Zealand four years later.
Sir Ian McGeechan has been banging that same drum for years but to little avail. Why is it that these men of grandeur and hands-on experience are wilfully ignored? They know what it takes. To refuse to heed their advice is heinous and shows a complete and utter disregard for what makes the Lions tick.
It is disgraceful that Premier Rugby has shown such flagrant contempt for the Lions in refusing to budge on the date of their final, June 24, 2021. Pro14 ceded to the wishes of the Lions in bringing its final forward a week to allow greater preparation time by staging a game, perhaps against the Barbarians, prior to departure. Premier Rugby waved a piece of paper, citing the San Francisco agreement as indisputable evidence that all the various blocks for club and international rugby had been put in place at that gathering of the game’s power brokers.
Funnily enough, the Lions did not have a mandated presence themselves. The nonsense in all this is that the home unions – England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales – are the Lions, yet they did not see fit to rise up against the prevailing view.
The Lions have waged mighty battles in the southern hemisphere for decades. This fight is closer to home but is every bit as important.