Lions’ future on line over plan to shorten tours
Reducing the number of games under the new global calendar could kill off the format, officials tell Gavin Mairs
The British and Irish Lions could become a “dead concept” if they are subjected to “insane” plans to reduce the number of games and length of future tours and fail to build in adequate preparation time, senior officials claimed last night.
With expectation and excitement building ahead of tomorrow’s first Test, leading figures have delivered a sobering verdict on the Lions’ future with warnings that the entire structure could be “killed off ”.
Moves to reduce future tours from 10 to eight games and six to five weeks were described as “madness” by John Spencer, a Lions board member and manager of the tour in New Zealand. He warned that coaches and players would turn their backs on the Lions because of the impossibility of the task they faced and the threats to welfare.
The next three-tour cycle of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand has been agreed in principle with a minimum of eight games, as part of the new global calendar from 2019 announced by World Rugby in March. However, negotiations between stakeholders to determine the details of the Lions tours from 2021 are ongoing and there is pressure from clubs, particularly in England, to shorten the length of the Lions tour to five weeks, a schedule that officials fear would make the concept untenable. They believe a two-week preparation time is the minimum requirement.
“If they take a couple of matches away from us, all coaches think that is madness, bordering on insanity – voluntary insanity,” Spencer told The Daily Telegraph. “If we are not careful with preparation I think the Lions could be a dead concept. The clubs would be killing it by demanding extra things every tour – shorter tours, fewer matches, less preparation. Meanwhile, with one fewer match before the first Test, the Lions would come under incredible pressure from the host nation.
“It is easy to say ‘don’t play the midweek matches’ but how do we prepare? Our tour has to have moral force. We need to engage with the community, be respectful and we need to go away with a level of integrity and unless we provide meaningful opposition you just cannot do it.”
There is huge frustration in the current Lions management that they were forced to play their opening game, against the New Zealand Provincial Barbarians, only three days after their long-haul flight from London because of the refusal of clubs to shift their domestic finals. The controversy of the six call-ups this week is further evidence of the challenging schedule.
It is understood that the Lions paid Premiership clubs around £470,000 in 2009 to secure agreement for the date of their final to be brought forward to allow a full week of preparation before the tour of South Africa. The request was rejected four years later by both English and Welsh clubs and not even raised ahead of this tour.
“I fully understand that the Premiership wants more time at the end of the season and do not want overlaps with internationals but one has to contrast with that the huge undertaking and status of the Lions tour,” said Spencer.
Senior sources in the home unions have admitted that the decision to block a plan to reduce the Six Nations from seven to six weeks – which had originally been proposed by the clubs as part of the new global calendar – has now left the Lions extremely vulnerable in the battle to maintain the current length of tour and secure more preparation time.
Spencer argued that “it would be totally contrary to all our values and common sense to let the Lions go into decline”. He added: “What other sport could take between 20,000 to 30,000 supporters away from home, help the economy of the host country and keep the creed and concept of the Lions going and here we are artificially trying to hit it around the head with a bat.
“We are going to put such pressure on the coaches and players at the end of a busy season and they will eventually, because it is such an impossible task, not want to go.
“Coaches will say ‘I am not putting my reputation at stake for that’, and players will say ‘we are just going to get beaten up.’”
John Feehan, the Lions chief executive, warned that decline would have alarming consequences for the financing of the game.
“If the Lions are killed over the next three tours then northern hemisphere leverage is gone and a great brand of rugby is gone,” said Feehan. “When I first started 16 years ago there was a lot of questioning in the press about whether the concept should be continued or not. The 2005 tour [to New Zealand] was difficult but what it did do was make a little bit of money.
“But what some unions did not really appreciate back then was how important the tour is financially for the SANZAR [South Africa, New Zealand and Australia] unions as the home union gets to keep the goodies. The northern hemisphere make more out of the autumn series than the southern hemisphere make out of the June series.”
Steve Tew, chief executive of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union and one of the key negotiators in the global calendar, said they had preferred to keep the number of tour games at 10 while eight was seen as the minimum number to maintain the tour’s ethos and revenue generation for the host nation.
“We have had a discussion about how many games and we have agreed there must be a minimum to make it still like a tour but also considered the pressure on the players’ workload from clubs’ point of view,” Tew told The Telegraph.
“If we got down to five games it would fundamentally change the way a tour is perceived by the players and the fans and it would be difficult for the Lions to be brought together for the Test matches with just two warm-up games.
“If it lands at eight, we can live with eight. There is no doubt though it will make it harder for the host country to determine who gets games and who doesn’t.”
Talks between the Lions board and their SANZAR counterparts over the details of the next three tours are expected before the end of the year. There is concern, however, that the Lions will lack a strong advocate given that any deal will require the unanimous agreement of the unions, some of whom, such as the Rugby Football Union, have to consider their long-term agreement with clubs.
“The Lions have a scarcity value that no other sporting event has. The SANZAR countries are happy for it to go down to eight games because the Lions have less preparation time and the host country has more chance of winning,” said Spencer. “Also financially they are not affected because they make their money around the Test matches.
“Let’s look at us for a change instead of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa and ask what is right for our guys? Is this what we want? If you ask any player on this tour what they think of the concept they will tell you it is overwhelming. It is the peak of their careers, a once-ina-lifetime opportunity. Every member of the squad and backroom staff feels the same. “I dread the start of the decline for reasons that can be avoided so easily at this stage. We should sit down around the table with the stakeholders and say ‘we understand where you are coming from but why are we going to kill off the king of rugby?’
“Let’s have a little bit of common sense in administration where we can protect rugby between certain dates once every four years.”
Steve Hansen, the All Blacks head coach, said yesterday that the impact of the Lions had been huge on the players who had faced them in the build-up to the first Test and on the country as a whole. “It would be a real shame if we ever lose the Lions,” he said.