There are so many reasons why a Lions tour this summer is a bad idea
TOURING THIS SUMMER IS A BAD IDEA FOR A MULTITUDE OF REASONS...
THERE are practical and moral reasons why the Lions tour planned for this summer will be the most underwhelming in living memory. Ploughing on with a tour of a country ravaged by Covid-19 is highly questionable, the latest venture by the fabled Lions into South Africa that should attract unblinking scrutiny.
The World Health Organization reported a week ago that almost 700million vaccinations had been administered worldwide; less than 2 per cent delivered in Africa.
The situation in South Africa is no less concerning than the wider continental outlook, with hundreds of health workers dying from the virus and the poverty endemic in large parts of the country further complicating efforts to contain the threat, particularly the one posed by the virus variant that has emerged in the country.
The Lions tour will take place behind closed doors, and the extent to which finance is driving the visit going ahead at all — all parties to the tour are desperate for the traditionally lucrative enterprise to happen, even in a highly circumscribed way — casts the entire affair in a darker light again.
This plan is serving commercial interests, not necessarily the game of rugby.
The moral dimension is the most relevant aspect but on the narrower grounds of rugby, the planned 2021 visit struggles to impress.
This stems mainly from the coaching group confirmed by Warren Gatland earlier this week. His first choices to lead the defence and forwards were unavailable, and so Robin McBryde and Steve Tandy were recruited, alongside Gregor Townsend and Neil Jenkins.
For all the estimable work McBryde has achieved since joining Leinster, and the clear improvements wrought by Tandy in Scotland’s defence, Gatland’s original picks were reported to be Andy Farrell and Steve Borthwick, with Graham Rowntree the scrum specialist.
Gatland talked up his selection, as he must, but the decisions of Farrell and Borthwick to prioritise their day jobs rather undermines
An honour but also an indulgence
the high-handed talk of the preciousness of the Lions.
This is the most offputting aspect of the Lions concept, and one doesn’t need to follow a tour to experience it. Sky Sports deliver their coverage with a reverential tone that is so overblown it has outgrown the effects of sarcasm or derision.
Guff about a Lions selection still constituting the peak of a Test career is heartily indulged by other broadcasters and swathes of the print media, too.
It’s as if the effects of 25 years of professionalism, which have utterly transformed every other aspect of the sport, stop at the Lions, as if some fabled force withholds the great waves of modernism that have swept practically every other legacy from a century of the sport to one side.
That is, of course, nonsense, and proof of that came with the decisions taken by Farrell and Borthwick.
Whereas Rowntree is understood to have decided not to tour for family reasons, the other two have stayed at home because of the commitments of their day jobs.
The pressure of the modern game makes the Lions not solely an honour, but an indulgence, too.
Well-placed reports emerged in recent days claiming that the IRFU did not give Farrell the goahead to take part, in light of their hopes that a summer tour to Fiji can be arranged despite the complications of trying to do so in a pandemic.
That is the type of hard-headed good sense given added urgency by the effects of the pandemic.
Every rugby union in the world is under financial pressure. The seriousness of the situation facing Irish rugby, as outlined consistently by Philip Browne, the chief executive of the IRFU, over the last 12 months, means domestic matters trump all, whatever about the mythos around the Lions.
A tour to Fiji lacks the glamour and sporting punch of a trip to New Zealand, Australia, or South Africa. After a year in which schedules have been torn apart, though, any extended trip abroad, with the associated benefits it extends to a coach of working at length with his players, is valuable, and has to be treated with consequent seriousness. If it was a case, then, that the IRFU were not enamoured of a plan that would see Farrell miss a tour to work with the Lions for a third time, that would fit with the priorities under which unions are now working.
Nor would it be a surprise, though, if Farrell had decided himself to pass up on the chance of working again with Gatland and instead wanted to try and build on the smashing end his Ireland team made to the Six Nations.
It should be remembered, after all, that on the eve of the England game there were some questioning the viability of his future as national coach.
The Six Nations ended up as a qualified triumph, thanks to the emphatic win against the English, but defeats in the first two rounds against Wales and France thick
ened doubts that had started to form during the autumn.
Paul O’Connell’s addition as forwards’ coach was the only convincing positive point, and a rampant win over an awful Italian side, and a comprehensive start against the Scots that almost turned into embarrassing collapse, did not greatly strengthen his case.
That changed with not only the result against England but the nature of it, but it must be the case that Farrell now wants to build on that.
Many of his most influential players will be picked by Gatland to tour with the Lions, but the obvious need to introduce greater options in several positions — out-half, scrumhalf, and the back three are all clearly in need of attention — means that a summer tour would be especially valuable this year.
That it is potentially against a tier-two country, an opponent against which even a weakened or experimental Irish side would expect to be competitive, at the very least, should make it even more appealing.
No amount of lush tributes attesting to the Lions legend could obscure that fact.
Some of those coaches that are remaining at home may also come to give thanks for missing out.
The planned schedule will not be as gruelling as ones undertaken on previous tours in the past two decades, when the need to expose the Lions brand as widely as possible has seen the tourists pack in three games a week, way ahead of the concluding Test series.
However, the travelling squad will be drawn from players who have had their season squashed into a smaller, more challenging window, exacerbating the usual end-of-season fatigue and injury issues.
They will also prepare under a coaching team that lacks the proven quality Gatland has drawn upon for the last two tours.
And finally, they will face a lightly raced but still formidable opponent.
The Springboks are the reigning world champions and will relish the return of red jerseys, even if the stadia turn out to be empty.
This could be one of the more painful episodes in the long, loudly recounted history of the Lions.
Home comforts could prove mightily reassuring for those coaches staying away.