LIONS TOUR 2017

ARECORD low representation in the modern era. Dark mutterings about a head coach who, it is suggested, barely bothered to learn the names of the Scots he’s overlooked.

A selection process hopelessly skewed, furthermore, by a Scotland coach deciding not to go along and make up the numbers. And a Mighty Mouse expressing genuine fears that the Lions might actually become extinct.

Would you miss them, this British and Irish Select now seemingly guaranteed to contain very few of our ain folk? On balance, most still enjoy watching a combined XV from these Isles pit their wits against Southern Hemisphere opposition — both at Test level and in those ‘interim’ dust-ups out on the infamous dirt track — every four years.

Ian McLauchlan, the illustrious Mouse mentioned above, would be disappointed if pressure from English clubs eventually forced the Home Unions to abandon a touring tradition whose main commercial benefits are currently enjoyed by the host nations.

As one of the most successful Lions in history, losing only once in eight Tests covering the visit to New Zealand in 1971 and South Africa in ’74, the Scot retains a special affection for the famous red jersey.

His thoughts on current head coach Warren Gatland, however, are notably less generous. And freely enough expressed, in the aftermath of the Kiwi — on a sabbatical from his day job as Wales boss — selecting only Stuart Hogg and Tommy Seymour as the Caledonian contingent in a travelling party of 16 Englishmen, 11 Irish players and, of course, 12 from the Wales squad who finished fifth in this year’s Six Nations.

‘Gatland doesn’t exactly have a good track record in liking people from Scotland,’ declared McLauchlan, the former SRU president who is still a director at Murrayfield. ‘He doesn’t come here, does he?

‘And he doesn’t know the names of Scottish players. When he was asked on TV whether there were any Scots in the running he said: “There’s Hogg and the new boy at centre, and one of the wingers looked quite good.” He couldn’t name them. He only knows Stuart Hogg.’

Invited to explain what he really thought about Gatland, the former prop said that was ‘a whole different story’ before joking: ‘Yeah? I’d go to jail…’

Without wishing to act as accomplices to any defamation, it’s fair to say that a great many Scottish rugby fans share some of the sentiments expressed by one of the all-time greats.

In his defence, Gatland (right) did attend four of Scotland’s five games in the Six Nations, as well as visiting training in Edinburgh during the Championship. But just two Scots worthy of inclusion?

Well, during the Great Depression of the ’30s, we did once contribute just a single player to the Lions. But you have to go back to 1908, and a tour not supported by the SRU, to find a British Isles select without a Scottish forward in the party.

The inevitable response from so many ‘in the know’ is that plenty of Scottish contenders suffered from not having a champion in those selection meetings held by Gatland’s brains trust of Wales, England and Ireland coaches.

The theory — one not much disputed — is that the refusal of both Gregor Townsend and Jason O’Halloran to take up roles with the Lions, instead preferring to focus on their day jobs, effectively killed off our chances of seeing five or six Scots in the initial Lions party.

McLauchlan doesn’t discount the idea. But he does not, for a moment, think that the Scotland coaches should have simply jumped at the sound of Gatland’s voice.

‘When Vern Cotter came to Scotland, he had an interim coach in Scott Johnson — and everybody went mad about that,’ he said.

‘And now you’ve got: “We should have let Gregor go”.

‘But Gregor is just starting a new job as well. So you’ve got a choice — is it more important that Gregor coaches the Lions or Scotland? In my opinion there’s only one horse in that race and that’s Scotland.

‘As for Jason O’Halloran, I think he was probably right to turn it down because he was an afterthought by Gatland. And as a Kiwi, the same as Gatland, he probably knew exactly how much input he’d have — which would be nil.

‘Selection by one person is always quite difficult. By a smaller group it is difficult, because they’ll pick players that they trust, that they know. Until recently we haven’t actually cut the mustard internationally, so we don’t have too much of a gripe in that respect. Then there’s the element of trust. These guys know the players they’ve worked with. ‘The other national coaches know the players they’ve worked with whereas they don’t actually know what they’ll get from the Scots boys.

‘I think the time will come, possibly even as early as the next Lions tour — if there is one — that we’ll have a better representation.’ McLauchlan’s insertion of that little two-letter hand gre- nade, his use of the word ‘if’ in connection to future tours suggesting a certain threat to the Lions as an entity, didn’t go unnoticed.

As things stand, all four Home Nation chief executives are negotiating with Southern Hemisphere counterparts in order to get a bigger slice of revenue from these tours; all major clubs are well aware that a new hard line is being taken.

Yet he declared: ‘I don’t think, I know, that there is a big movement from the English clubs, who don’t want the Lions to continue because they lose their players for far too long. It’s not just the time they’re away, it’s the rest period they require when they come back.

‘It’s commercially a big venture for the Southern Hemisphere but it’s not for the northern unions. Scotland don’t benefit financially from the Lions.’

When it was pointed out that the Australian Rugby Union would be in real financial trouble without the odd Lions Tour, McLauchlan said simply: ‘That’s their problem.’