Lions must now engage with the Premiership
The idea that the best players from the Home Unions get together every four years and travel to the southern hemisphere is a hugely romantic one, with decades of history behind it. Away from home and family for weeks on end, it’s only natural that the players bond, and friendships made on tour last a lifetime. However, nowadays those players are full-time professionals, who have chosen to sign contracts with clubs, or in the Celtic nations it might be Unions, that commit them to playing when their employers need them.
As a concept the Lions were suited to the amateur days when club rugby was followed by a good night out and more than a few beers, and training was done on a couple of evenings each week, with players employed by benevolent employers who were happy to capitalise on their fame.
Now, however, if a club is paying a player in excess of £350k – more in many cases – for a season that encompasses around 30 games, is it reasonable to expect them to forego that player’s services for around 15 per cent of the campaign?
When you then factor in that the clubs are also releasing their players, as they are required to do, for the Autumn internationals and the Six Nations, how many times will a fan see them play for their club?
The Lions, and outgoing coach Warren Gatland, seem to expect the clubs to prioritise them over their league competition. Gatland, and others, often lump the World Cup and the Lions tours together as the most important events in rugby’s calendar, but I think that borders on oldschool arrogance. The RWC involves the whole
rugby family and that’s very different from the Lions. Both are elite events, but the Lions is, by definition, elitist.
I can’t see how the Lions in their present form can achieve a longer tour – they might be able to win over the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh, for whom league rugby is secondary to the international game, but the Premiership will soon have 14 teams, meaning 26 club games in a season. This time the clubs have given up their players until midOctober, meaning they’ll miss at least the first four – probably five – rounds of
the new season, a huge and generous concession.
If the Lions persist in their demand to prioritise their tours over the Premiership then maybe we’ll end up with the Celtic Lions rather than the current model.
I’ve no doubt that the SARU’s need for cash was a huge driver behind the latest tour going ahead, even though many people felt it should be cancelled. Think of the Lions as missionaries, doing their bit to keep the SANZAR nations solvent!
If Lions tours in their current form have run their course, then perhaps they need to evolve to become more like the Barbarians. There isn’t any space in the professional calendar for a lengthy tour, so the Lions board need to get their heads together and see what they can come up with that sustains the history, but matches the needs of the modern game.
It could be similar to the recent one, but where the hosts commit to a set of standards for the warm-up games – less can sometimes be more.
As for the rugby, the ‘product’ served up by the Lions in South Africa was dire, and that was down to a boring set of tactics. I’d far rather see a Lions team committed to a Baa-Baas style of attacking rugby, and if they lost, so be it – and let’s have a younger coach, ideally from one of the Home Unions.
This Covid-affected tour has damaged the Lions brand, but not necessarily beyond repair. Its board consists of the CEOs of the four Unions, and great former players, long retired, and mainly from the amateur days. The Lions were once the biggest thing in rugby, but we need some new blood that can reinvent them for the modern world. That involves showing respect for the clubs, and finding a way to fit in with them.