You can’t have any self-doubt on a Lions Tour. And there is no room for bad apples
FORMER SCOTLAND SKIPPER HASTINGS UNCOVERS THE SECRETS OF LIFE AS THE LEADER OF THE PACK
THE Lion does not sleep tonight. He prowls a hotel room on the other side of the world knowing that he has to lead the British and Irish Lions against an All Black side who are already one up in the series. He calls home.
‘Mum, I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can handle the pressure,’ Sam Warburton says. He reflects later: ‘I think if someone had told me I could have jumped on a flight home, I might have done it.’
The Welshman’s mother assures him he can handle it all. He does. The Lions win the second Test, draw the third and yet another instalment in a consistently compelling sporting story ends in drama.
It continues in South Africa later this summer. The players have largely changed since the 2017 tour in New Zealand but the pressures and demands remain.
There are constants in being a Lion. ‘I really got into it,’ says Gavin Hastings of his extraordinary investigations into the tours since 1987 that have been gathered in a book bristling with stories and offering the sort of insight that one Lion can draw from another.
Did Hastings (right), captain of the 1993 tour and player in the 1989 tour, recognise the dark night of the soul that plagued Warburton?
‘Yes,’ he says simply. ‘You always have periods of selfdoubt. There is no question about that. For me, these times always take place in the middle of the night, not when the sun is shining. ‘You are somehow alone in the room. You might have a teammate sharing that room but they are probably sleeping and you are wide awake. The thoughts are racing through your head. ‘Gosh yes, I have always had those nights. I have them now.’ He does not shy away from the pressure of being a Lion, or its distilled form, leading the Lions. He continues: ‘I do remember instances of that. You wake up, the thoughts race, then it is back to sleep for an hour or two. Then it is the morning and life is ok again.’ Hastings emphasises there is a wonderful consolation. ‘We are doing what we want to do,’ he insists. The 59-year-old Scot was part of the 1989 squad that was so successful in Australia then captained the tourists in the losing 1993 series in New Zealand that started with horse-trading in the selection room and ended lamely in a 30-13 victory to the All Blacks that gave them a 2-1 series win. Hastings’ inquiries into eight tours bring to light the secrets of success but, more intriguingly, the enduring lessons from defeat. So what did he take personally from 1993?
‘The most important thing I learned was to be honest with the person that looks back at you from the mirror,’ he says.
‘Ultimately, the man who stares back is the person you cannot fool. If you are honest with that person, then you can be honest with everyone else. It’s a good attribute. If you are honest in everything you do, in your thinking, your deeds, if you have nothing to hide, it doesn’t matter what you are accused of. If you haven’t done it, you can’t be worried about it.
‘I was honest. I knew I was the best man for the job. I knew what I was like. I knew that I was as good a player as anyone else in the team. I knew I was capable of influencing the result as much as anybody else. I had to remain focused and resolute.’
His actions back his words. Hastings is the record points scorer with the Lions.
His resilience, though, was sorely tested as the tour descended into disharmony among some of the players. The problem started at home.
‘There was lot of horse-trading in selection for that team. Geech (Ian McGeechan, coach) told me that,’ says Hastings. ‘I didn’t know about it at the time but there was no doubt selection was not as good as it could have been and that cost us the series. It is unfathomable, unthinkable in this day and age.’
There is a recurring theme in the Lions. Setbacks produce lessons. Lessons learned produce victories.
‘It was a mistake they never made again,’ he declares. ‘It should never have happened in the first place.’ But he adds that there is a personal responsibility in each player and its effects can linger if it isn’t taken on in the heat of battle.
‘I am happy in my own mind with the rugby player I was and what I achieved on and off the field. It is a level of comfort that I have,’ he says. ‘I was not the best player in the world but I was as good as I could be. I never took anything for granted. I was never complacent.’ The book — and Hastings’ voice — resounds with the core essentials of the Lions. The group is only as good as its weakest player. The personality of those not playing in the Test XV is as important as those who do.
He believes this component will be key to the selection of the squad for this tour that will be played out under Covid restrictions on and off the pitch.
‘These guys cannot go to pubs, restaurants, golf, white-water rafting or whatever... or at least not as easily as in previous tours,’ says Hastings. ‘It will be limited in comparison to past tours, therefore the quality of man they need to have will have been considered closely.
‘If they get it wrong, if there are a couple of bad apples, then that can spread quickly and, all of a sudden... that’s what maybe happened in 1993. There was a lack of commitment by a couple of guys. It’s happened on other tours.
‘There are guys who cannot deal with the pressures of being away
from home for six weeks. They were not cut out for it. It’s extreme pressure. It’s tough and not everyone can cope with it.’
THERE are those, though, who are made for it. Hastings interviewed every Lions captain from Finlay Calder through Martin Johnson, Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell to Warburton.
‘I wanted to come at it from a different angle,’ he says.
It is the very definition of the inside story. The captains, possibly relaxed by being interviewed by a peer, are candid. The coaches are honest, brutally so in the case of Graham Henry, who managed a disappointing Lions tour in 2001 and then coached the All Blacks to defeat them in a 3-0 series rout.
‘Apart from Martin Johnson, I don’t know the captains that well. But you belong to a pretty exclusive club, so that leads to honesty, respect, trust,’ says Hastings. ‘It’s not about dishing dirt. It’s about celebrating the Lions. It’s not just about what we got right, it’s about what we got wrong and how we recovered from it.’
It is, too, revealing on the character and the guile of captains. Both can be summarised in one moment.
At Eden Park, on July 8, 2017, referee Romain Poite awarded the All Blacks a penalty with three minutes to go in the final match of the series. The score was 15-15. The series was 1-1.
There then followed a dramatic interlude when Warburton was clever and Kieran Read, the All Blacks captain, was gracious.
Warburton asked the referee to review the decision. The captain did not have a specific grievance. It was a shot to nothing. ‘He wouldn’t speak to the ref all the time,’ says Hastings. ‘There was feedback to say that was respected by refs. Some captains by their body language and their constant questioning find that the refs will just not listen.’
Poite did. He reviewed and rescinded the penalty, awarding a scrum. The series was drawn. The decision was contentious, very probably wrong but, as Hastings points out, the All Blacks accepted it.
‘Kieran told me: “I didn’t want to be a cry baby”. Can you imagine footballers dealing with that huge decision in that way? If it had gone the other way, would the Lions have handled it as well? I am not sure.
‘But that was brilliant captaincy from Warburton. He was in control in a crisis. No shouting, just a quiet word to have it checked.’
The matter of personality is the lifeblood of the Lions and it transcends normally sizeable barriers.
Clive Woodward abandoned the room-sharing culture on 2005 tour and this was a mistake that was corrected in later trips.
‘You find a bond by sharing,’ says Hastings. ‘You can find out that your room-mate is considerate, friendly, funny. You become known to each other.’
There are alliances formed on the Lions that could be considered unusual from the outside but are perfectly natural to the participants. Hastings retains enormous respect for Brian Moore, the hooker who could have been an expert in sinusitis given his ability to get up the noses of Scots.
He also points out that, in 1989, Calder earned the respect of the English forwards and that was crucial in the cohesion that led to a series win.
He talks of England World Cup-winning captain Johnson, Lions skipper in 1997 and 2001, as ‘a giant of a man’. There is a history of replacements and unheralded selections making enormous impacts on tour. This list trembles to the exploits of such as Tom Smith, the Scotland prop, who was considered too small to face South Africa but whose strength and low scrummaging position was instrumental in the defeat of the Springboks in 1997.
So who could race from the edges of the squad to the centre of the Test battles in this series? ‘Chris Harris,’ says Hastings. ‘He is underrated. I have a feeling he might do very well on this tour.’
Having named a Scots centre, he adds an Englishman who plays in the same position. ‘Sam Simmonds is ripping it up for Exeter and has impressed Gatland without playing for England recently. He could be a force.’
Of Gatland, Hastings says: ‘He is an absolute winner. His playing career was marked with the frustration of sitting on the All Blacks bench 50 times as understudy to Sean Fitzpatrick. He is not afraid to take a big decision.’
Eight Scotland players will be on tour, with Gregor Townsend as attack coach. Does this increase the chances of Scots backs starting the Test matches? Hastings does not believe so, citing the Gatland propensity not to mix sentiment with the imperative of winning.
‘People get a wee bit more het up about all this than I do,’ he says. ‘It’s not about Scottish players, It’s about the Lions. Gatland will give every player as fair a shot as it is possible to do on such a condensed tour. That’s all anyone can ask.’ His verdict? ‘We are playing the world champions, so it is going to be tough. But it will be compelling. I can’t wait.’
There may be more sleepless nights for the erstwhile Lion.
Legacy of the Lions: Lessons in leadership from the British and Irish Lions by Gavin Hastings is published by Polaris at £17.99
Team selection wasn’t what it should have been. It cost us