Joyless Lions tour a wasted opportunity

What is a Lions tour? At its best it is a romantic sporting adventure crisscrossing a distant land with an epic Test series at the end.

At its worst? Well, that is what we are seeing in South Africa.

While the Olympics in Japan has cast off the shadow of Covid and showcased its myriad sports so brightly, the Lions tour has done the exact opposite.

The sheer joylessness of the rugby experience has been profoundly depressing. The early matches were disfigured by Covid and when they were played, rendered meaningless by weak provincial selections. The Tests themselves have been ugly-as-sin kickathons which, if you had no emotional attachment, would have been unwatchable.

In between has been a corrosive pressurising of the officials, which has made a nonsense of rugby union’s supposed iron law of referee respect. It has made you wonder whether the whole escapade has been worth it.

It was always going to be a difficult trip with the backdrop of empty stadiums and bubble life, but the optimistic hope was the magic of a Lions tour would shine through that. The best of the northern hemisphere versus the world champions had promising ingredients.

As the tour has evolved though and built to a crescendo of spiteful negativity, it has left a feeling of emptiness rather than excitement. The series is on the line in a winner-takes-all decider and frankly the 3rd XI cricket at the park sounds as appealing a proposition tomorrow.

The claim of New Zealand’s head coach Ian Foster that he fell asleep watching the second

Test was entirely believable. South Africa’s risk-free modus operandi is tried and tested, and it works so well they are world champions. That is an existential problem for rugby union’s lawmakers.

For Lions coach Warren Gatland to decide to copy it so rigidly that stand-off Dan Biggar passed the ball just three times in his 58 minutes on the field last weekend has led to a wretched spectacle.

When the busiest man in Sky’s overcrowded commentary box is a former referee, Nigel Owens, you know the action isn’t the best.

Of course, for Gatland and South Africa’s Rassie Erasmus, all that matters is the result and they have shown how far they are willing to go to get what they want with their attempts to influence the officials. World Rugby have put Erasmus in the

It’s made you wonder if it has been worth it

dock for his critical monologue over the refereeing of the first Test.

Part of Leicester hooker Tom Youngs’s punishment from the RFU for “disrespecting the authority of a match official” last season was to sit a refereeing course and take charge of two junior matches.

World Rugby should impose a similar sanction on Erasmus if he is found guilty.

South Africa’s director of rugby might also get to see some entertaining rugby that way too.

Perhaps we will be treated to a classic finale in Cape Town tomorrow, one so good it will erase the memory of everything that has gone before. Much more likely though is more niggly high-ball neck ache.

In two days’ time the Lions will be packed away for another four years.

That will be a cause of some relief after how this tour has gone, but also regret at such a wasted opportunity for rugby.