“The Lions must rise to the occasion in the first Test”
Warren Gatland’s men face the Springboks in Cape Town on 24 July. History highlights the importance of the tourists getting off to a winning start, explains Stephen Jones
NO LIONS follower could possibly fail to grasp the significance of the first Test against the Springboks in Cape Town Stadium later this month.
In my opinion there are extraneous aspects that improve their chances. First, this Test is at sea level, the conditions will be far more familiar than they can be at alien altitude. There is no doubt that the host nation wanted the Test to be at altitude but the changes needed in the pandemic era made that impossible. The second aspect that helps is that the stadium doesn’t have the same imposing and almost awesome surroundings of Newlands, the grand old arena now gradually falling into disuse. Even with no crowd attendance, Newlands could make the spirits quail. It may have seen its best days but the setting under the towering mountains, the sense of history grown up over all the decades, made it seem like a forbidden planet. Compared to that, the new stadium is simply bright and breezy.
But as usual, we can learn from history and we will find that the match is even more important than we think. The statistics of Lions success in turning around a series after losing the first Test are shockingly abysmal; in fact, they hardly exist. From the time that tours were organised by the four home nations, it has been carnage whenever the first International was lost. The tourists did come
back to win a four-match series in Australia in 1899, but how long do you have to wait before you can find the next example? No fewer than 90 years. In 1989 the Lions, led by Finlay Calder and coached by Ian McGeechan, lost the first Test but bounced back to win the second in Brisbane and completed the revival in the third in Sydney.
However, it has never happened since and it must be said that, with respect, tours of Australia are never quite as intense and difficult as tours of New Zealand and South Africa. In neither country have the Lions come back to win from being one-nil down, and if the Lions lose in Cape Town this time, then the full and horrible weight of history will be standing against them.
This is one of the reasons why the fools who deny Lions proper preparation time drive you so scatty and make you so furious. Around 75% of preparations for any Lions tour should be focused on giving the Lions every chance to recuperate and rest, then work up so that they are well-prepared for the first International.
Instead, we keep sending them away with absolutely no chance of being really ready and this time, with only a truncated tour and a mere five non-Test matches before the Cape
Town contest, so much will be patched up and so much will be guesswork.
And the truth is that many players could well be receiving only one or two starting jerseys to show what they can achieve. One poor game or even one poor half and they could be returning to Britain and Ireland without ever having a decent chance to make the Test team.
And imagine how all Lions fans will feel on the morning after the first Test if they should lose. The remainder of the tour schedule has two Tests at altitude, both at Johannesburg’s First National Bank Stadium – also known as Soccer City – with the Lions then needing to win both to take the series.
The Lions weren’t ready for the first Test of 2009. They were feeble in defence early on and disorganised.
They were also poor in the scrum and a combination of that and rank refereeing saw Tendai Mtawarira apparently dominating the scrum, even though he was not remotely then the player that he was to become. The Lions dominated all bar ten minutes of the rest of the series but the slow start again cost them.
So how did they manage it in 1989, after falling behind? Interesting. McGeechan was then in his formative years as a coach and admits that he had moments when he wondered before the tour if he would be up to it. When the Lions arrived in Australia for what was then a reasonably lengthy pre-Tests period, they were split down national
lines in the sense that Scotland and England – heavily represented on tour – played two completely different styles.
Scotland played a rapid, rucking game, while England preferred to slow things down to suit their strong arms, and featured scrummaging and mauling. The differences were so profound that there were some harsh words early on and doubts as to which style would prevail.
By the time of the first Test in Sydney, the Lions had still not worked out who they were and how they would play. They lost in rather a poor match, in which their lack of real focus shone through. But by the time of the second Test, they had made up their minds. They would use the strong arms, they would not bother to play into the hands of the faster-moving Australians.
They brought Wade Dooley into the second row, in the back row they teamed up Mike Teague, Dean Richards and Calder. Then they had Rob Andrew to kick judiciously at fly-half and they had Robert Jones, then a stroppy figure, to take up the temperature of what was to become an incendiary series.
They went out in both the remaining provincial games and in both the remaining Test matches playing a merciless style, attracting very few new admirers amongst the Australian public – never a bad policy – and came through the angry series to win it and complete their recovery. After that second Test, Australia coach Bob Dwyer claimed that his team had been “beaten up by the English coppers”. Richards, Dooley and Paul Ackford were all at the time in the constabulary.
The Lions were able to recover because they spotted their obvious fault lines and they reacted. Sometimes
in the intensity and with the short time frame on tour, it’s difficult to be so definitive in improving.
So many Lions teams clearly lost the series by losing the first Test, and they illustrated this by leaving the impression that they may have been the better team, lacking only the initial glory.
The 1993 team in New Zealand, led by Gavin Hastings and again coached by McGeechan, were finding their way at the time of the first Test in Christchurch and were robbed of victory by an absolutely abysmal decision by Brian Kinsey, the Australian referee, after Dean Richards and Frank Bunce were competing for the ball in a ruck towards the end of the game. Grant Fox slotted the penalty and the Lions lost 20-18.
What often happens is that the team losing the first Test is then presented with one single opportunity to save the series and the tour so they come out steaming, give it absolutely everything in their bid. Occasionally, that leaves them short of new inspiration and energy once they have forced the third Test to be a decider. There is a kind of yo-yo rhythm about it that can be difficult to reverse.
In 2017 in New Zealand, where the Lions performed the highly-creditable feat of coming back to draw the series after going one-nil down, part of the problem appeared to be psychological. It was only later in the series that the Lions realised in their hearts that it was eminently winnable, that New Zealand had faded in some areas – Kieran Read, their famous captain, was nothing remotely like the player he once was.
The first Test was a decent contest and occasion, but you felt at the end that the Lions never really grasped that victory was there for the taking and they only did so after they had won the second and, clearly, could and should have won the third. The rhythm of it all is interesting and often excruciating.
It’s not quite true to say that they never come back. But the Lions must be as ready as they can possibly be for the big one in Cape Town Stadium. We don’t know how big a part injuries will play or, indeed, the momentum of the last couple of games going into the Test. The only certainty is that for the Lions, if they do not come away victorious in the first Test, then the tour will forever after be travelling up a steep hill.