Lions must be touring underdogs to survive
THE fate of the 2021 Lions has caused much heated debate this week with the options seemingly ranging from cancel for a year, cancel until 2025 or stage a unique home series in Britain and Ireland of three Test matches and perhaps the already scheduled warm-up game against Japan.
The suits – some of them no particular friends of the Lions who they find as irritating and draining as we find them wonderful and inspiring – will have to make a decision soon but one thing is certain. You tamper with the Lions magic at your peril. In fact you could easily kill them off in one fell swoop.
I long ago adopted a very simple mantra when it comes to the Lions, or to be more precise a famous political quote which I find strangely applicable.
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” proclaimed JFK in a famous speech in Houston in 1962 when he vowed America would walk on the moon by the end of the decade.
The Lions as a concept only really works when the odds are stacked against them. Hastily gathered at the end of a long season with almost no preparation time; on the road in searing heat or ridiculously wet New Zealand winters.
Dodgy home refs, average hotels, injuries, hastily summoned replacements, uber aggressive home media mocking your every effort, pumped up world-class opponents getting their 12-yearly once-in-a-career pop at you.
That’s what makes Lions tours tick. The Lions aim for the summit every four years, not because it’s easy but because it’s hard. Bloody hard. Only occasionally do they succeed – five series wins in 18 attempts since World War 2.
There has to be that ‘Mission Impossible’ ambience around the Lions because objectively, if you flip the concept and the Lions become the hosts, four nations against one is an entirely different, less satisfying dynamic.
Familiar stadia, home support, and the minimum of quarantine protocols, which presumably the incoming South Africans would have to endure. And remember, assuming the Boks’ scheduled warm-up game against Namibia is cancelled, South Africa would arrive here having not played a game of Test rugby in 20 months.
Two of the most underwhelming rugby experiences I can ever remember were novelty Lions games which I mistakenly thought, beforehand, might hit the sweet spot.
The first was the Lions warm-up game against Argentina at Cardiff Arms Park in 2005 which was a damp squib of a game in front of nearly 60,000 fans who weren’t quite sure what to make of a strangely soulless 13-13 draw. It just didn’t seem right and set a downbeat tone for the tour which followed.
I suspect all present, deep down, knew they were only there really to raise the funds for the Lions to send a bigger than usual party to New Zealand. And if a Test series was to be played here this summer again let’s be quite clear, it would be primarily for the money.
In 2013 the bean counters had their way again with a distracting and meaningless stopover in Hong Kong for another fund-raiser against the Barbarians. Two of the most famous touring teams in the world, what could go wrong you might think and in 1977 they had produced entertaining fare at Twickenham in a game to celebrate the Queen’s silver jubilee. On this occasion though it was a non event, a contest never broke out, the Lions strolling to a 59-8 victory.
I can see the dilemma. Rugby is on its arse and needs every penny that can be raised. And, yes, if the Lions are tempted to move the series to the UK, they will preserve some of the invaluable TV money but frankly everything else will be sloppy seconds. Empty or half empty stadia, no travelling fans on tour from South Africa generating the excitement and buzz wherever they pitch their tents. The entire essence of a Lions tour will disappear and perhaps the team with it.