Interesting thoughts as ever, Rugby fan.

I think that the Lions can compete against the Boks on Saturday but I have one major fear. When England went to New Zealand after we had won the World Cup, Woodward hoped it was to cement our dominance over the Southern Hemisphere. It didn’t work out that way but the second 2004 Test was a turning point. We lost the first test but felt the second was winnable. If we had squared the series in the second test then we would have been honours even. But then this happened:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd_KCcbHgRk

That’s Simon Shaw getting a red card when England had started well and NZ were on the back foot. I remember howling that it was unjustified at the time but now I realize it doesn’t mattter whether I was right or wrong. The point is that Shaw put himself in a position where an official could send him off and that is very poor play. My worry, then, is that the Lions pack come out as fired up for revenge for the second Test now as England were against New Zealand in 2004 and someone, maybe Shaw again, does something stupid to draw an early card.

Incidentally, I’ve always thought that England’s failure in 2004 against NZ and Australia is one reason why Dallaglio, Back, Hill, Greenwood & Dawson stuck around for the failed 2005 Lions. Martin Johnson got his timing right and retired before the 2004 matches and those guys might wish they had done so too. I think some of the 2003 World Cup winners hoped 2004 would be a victory lap but stayed around for the Lions because they didn’t want to end on a losing note. For Dallaglio, the subsequent Lions failure drove him to try for the 2007 World Cup.

The Boks got their points from having the far stronger advantage in the scrum – and resulting penalty kicks from Piennar.

When the Lions got the ball out to their backline, they were much better than the Boks – a fact also acknowledged by most commentators – SA and others.

The Boks made substitutions which no doubt weakenend their hand. The Lions made changes which strengthened theirs – a fact acknolwedged by rugby critics, presenters, journalists, and ex-players – as you describe them.

Very briefly:

Kearney was the incumbent 15 during Ireland’s Grand Slam season.

Phillips is a bit wooden, a bit too upright. You’re right, and I have real problems with his service. However, physically he can dominate games. So, presumably, with the right coaching he has the potential to be world class.

I think the Lions have tried to play too much rugby this tour. During the wet games they failed to play tactically, and against SA they picked a front row to handle and contest the ruck. In other words they seem to have ignored the necessity of conservatism.
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Viscount,

I don’t agree with your carousel comment. The EPS agreement makes it impossible for players to be easily jettisoned. If you’re in then you’re in for a good few months. I do, however, agree with your sentiment about the necessity of consistent selection. Pleasingly, Johnson has started to develop a core group – which, of course, the EPS agreement facilitates.

Regarding the Lions, I don’t think the coaches were wowed by Mears or A.W. Jones in the build up, I would suggest they were selected with past achievements in mind. Mears was selected to throw accurately and A.W. Jones was selected because he has played very well against SA when he has played against them, and because the coaches sought a more mobile pack.
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Campbell,

Thanks for that interlude.
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Rugby Fan,

I completely agree about your backline comment. Having seen some of the performances of the mid-week team, and the hosh bosh selection, I can’t help but wonder what difference Care, Hipkiss/Tindall and D. Armitage would have made.

I think the 1st Test illustrated the perils of picking on form. The Lions selectors were waylaid by decent performances against sub-standard opposition in the build-up. Thus Mears and Wyn Jones snuck into the XV when the selectors would have been better off sticking to their original instincts – that is, to go with beef.

The most startling thing about Durban was how some of the Lions players crumbled under pressure. Mears lost his nerve; so too, I thought, did Stephen Jones and Lee Byrne. No warm-up match can possibly mimic the unique pressures of a Lions Test.

I think there ARE some extremely talented players in England, but they require more than two or three Tests to attune themselves to the demands of the international game. Ex-pros say that it takes about 20 Tests before you stop obsessing over your own performance and start thinking more about the team’s performance.

I read an article in an English newspaper before the Argentina game which stated that “tonight is the night we’ll find out whether Chris Robshaw is cut out for international rugby”. I thought that was complete nonsense. It’s ludicrous to judge a guy solely by how he fares on debut.

If Matt Giteau was English, then I reckon he’d have played about half as many Tests as he has now. Patience would have been lost somewhere along the line and he’d have been in and out like a Hodgson or Flood or Tait.

Encouragingly, Jonno seems to understand the importance of stability and a fair crack of the whip. Andy Robinson was a terrific technical coach, but his selection policy was appalling – he changed his mind like the wind. It’ll be interesting to see whether the likes of Croft, Care, Monye and Hartley can kick on to become world-class players now that they’re likely to enjoy a decent run of games. There’ll be some wastage – there always is – but these players have no chance unless they’re afforded a fair go.

One fairly constant theme in Lions tours is that the final Test selection rarely matches the pre-departure choices. When the team wins, the outside bets look like inspired but when the team loses, there is bound to be speculation about why the stars weren’t played. It seems daft now that Vickery was preferred to Murray who managed to handle the Beast when they last met. However, Powell was selected for the squad partly because of what he achieved against South Africa before but he hasn’t been able to have the same impact this time around. Similarly, I’m sure we can all imagine how Shane Williams might show some magic but, like Mike Blair, he hasn’t so far and his lack of form could just as easily continue.

The best chance for the Lions on Saturday is that the players turn up with their best game. Monye butchered two tries which may well cost him his place but Bowe didn’t look like scoring at all and he had been superb up until Saturday. Heaslip and Byrne also were both less assured despite being form players for much of the tour. If those guys can show up and our front five manage a degree of parity then the team can be competitive.

There are plenty of ways it can end ignominiously for the Lions not least because the Boks know what they are facing now and will be keen to blow the opposition away as early as possible.

“The thing about English rugby is that there are so many players of roughly equivalent ability that they’ll happily jettison guys and turn to someone else for five games. It’s a never-ending carousel.”

This is a verbatim description of NSW in State-of-Origin rugby league (theme du jour over here).

“If these guys were Australian, then Robbie Deans would have no option but to work with them and cajole them and eventually they would become class operators. There is so much wasted talent in England.”

Not sure about this. Ability invariably follows a Bell distribution, and it is very rare for a large group to be good without anyone being very good. I strongly suspect that either the gems are there in England but are not identified, or else that the gems are not there and a lot of players are vastly over-rated. Let me be charitable and say it’s more likely the former.

It is a truism that the more talent there is, the harder it is to identify the gems. If I look at the Australian cricket system (with 6 state sides) or NZ rugby (with 5 S14 franchises) it’s easy to conclude that ideally a pyramid has about 6 teams below the point at the top. Certainly this is in accord with modern management principles, which recommend that a boss should have 6-8 people in the layer below them. In sporting terms the point of the number 6 is that it provides the right level of talent screening: there is enough diversity to provide choice, but at the same time there are not so many players that one struggles to see the wood for the trees.

So my recommendation to the RU would be to strip the GP to 6-8 teams in order to make England stronger (i.e., 6 teams worth of English players, 2 teams worth of imports). This would sort out the “players of roughly equivalent ability”, and make it clearer who the gems are.

Keep bleeting all you like about how they dried up the Boks ball, played all the rugby etc etc etc…

In my opinion the score was Boks26 , Lions 21 – deny that Knives???

The thing about English rugby is that there are so many players of roughly equivalent ability that they’ll happily jettison guys and turn to someone else for five games. It’s a never-ending carousel. Thus Haskell is now third in the pecking order behind Croft and Robshaw, Rees is probably behind Steffon Armitage, Joe Worsley and Lewis Moody, and Narraway is behind Easter and Jordan Crane.

If these guys were Australian, then Robbie Deans would have no option but to work with them and cajole them and eventually they would become class operators. There is so much wasted talent in England.

I was super impressed with Kearney in Australasia in June 2008, and thought that here was a great player in the making. I am not sure why, but neither McGeechan nor Kidney seems to have given him appropriate opportunities since then.

I also thought Croft looked superb for England in NZ in June 2008. However the NZ media did not give him recognition (maybe they cannot accept that anyone else except McCaw can be brilliant at 7?), so I did not wish to take my impression as confirmed. (Now I should?)

Phillips looks a bit too wooden to me, but maybe I am too harsh? The other thing is that it’s rare for a 9 or a 10 to be great in isolation – is Phillips suffering from playing with mediocrity at 10?

I have not seen enough of Bowe or A.W. Jones to comment.

Watching NZ and Australia tour Europe last November, it occurred to me that there was enough individual brilliance around the British Isles for the Lions to have a backline far more brilliant (on paper) than South Africa could get anywhere near assembling. For example, what could happen if McGeechan threw together Byrne, S Williams, R Kearney, O’Driscoll, Roberts, Cipriani/Hook, Blair/Phillips? Notice the word “could” here. It’s an unknown, but my point is that maybe McGeechan had to take risks – I know the series is not yet over, but I could never see the Lions winning it through being conservative. So maybe McGeechan should have just taken his 15 most individually brilliant players, trained them together, played them together, and seen what sort of a cake was baked.

I guess I am being a bit radical here, but hopefully my point is clear. I realise that Shane Williams has had a dismal 6 months, but it’s only 12 months since he absolutely tore the Boks to shreds in South Africa. That sort of rare ability does not disappear overnight.

Mr. Russell, you’re sweet. I’m blushing all the way away in Pomland. I love you too, babe.

Personally, I think the magic of the Lions lies in the fact that they’re not supposed to win. Being a Lion in an amateur era was wonderful for the players simply because they were allowed to train like professionals for three months, or however long they were away. That, IMO, removes some of the corinthian glamour of the old teams that they have accrued over the years because their opponents were probably not afforded that same luxury. That the Lions are way behind the 8 ball in the professional era (so few games to play etc) means that the romanticisation can be brought back into an increasingly dull test world. Being a Lion is basically mission impossible – it’s the last great adventure in rugby, and the 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2001 tours have reflected that with each series being a nail biter. However, it must be recognised that longer tours are a necessity, as are the best opposition players being released to play for their provinces/franchises.

Is Paul O’Connell a great player? I’m not sure. He’s had some truly exceptional games for Ireland but has struggled every time he has put on a Lions jersey. He wouldn’t have been my choice of captain, put it that way. I suppose the real issue is what defines a great player. I think Juan Smith is a great player, but various SA fans I know cannot stand him. I think Martyn Williams is a great player but he hasn’t been a great Lion. Is that significant? Obviously some players are utilised differently by their countries than with the Lions.

Of the younger generation, Tom Croft and Tommy Bowe could be great players, as could Rob Kearney, Mike Phillips and A.W. Jones. Sometimes I forget just how young, and therefore unproven, the touring squad is. To that extent, the tour selection has remarkable similarities with the 1997 squad. Many people have forgotten that Dallaglio had hardly played for England, that Smith, Wallace and Davidson were test nobodies, that Greenwood hadn’t even played for England, that Back was rarely, if ever, used by England, that Jenkins was a terrible full back etc. Allied to the various rugby league enigmas: Tait, Young, Quinnell, Bentley and Gibbs, that squad was drastically short of star power. Let’s put it this way – a few weeks ago none of the media gave the Lions a prayer and all of a sudden these physical specimens have leapt off the screen and into people’s imaginations.
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Darryl,

Agree completely with your 3rd para. Berdos (?) could be an equaliser. I’d be surprised if Roberts wasn’t much better contained this week, however.

The Boks on the other hand will now play with an element of doubt and fear thanks to the way the last test ended, and they have not had the time together to find the cohesion they will need to counter the Lions confidence – this is both for defense and offense. Jacobs is starting again, which means that O Driscoll and Roberts will be punching holes through the midfield again at will, so unless the Bok forwards can contain the Lions forwards (which won’t happen from the scrum this week that’s for sure), I foresee the Lions running rampant spreading it wide.

Of course the weather and the referee are an unknown influence. The way that ref could barely speak English worries me. He’s also a NH ref so I expect his interpretation to favour the Lions much like we saw last night against the Emerging Boks with a NH ref, and much like Lawrence favoured the Boks. I’m not accusing any of the refs of bias, simply that the players from that hemisphere are more accustomed to their interpretation and playing to their interpretation. I hate to admit this but I expect the Boks to lose this one and setup a clanger of a final test, by which time they will have found their feet, and by which time Jacobs will have been found out and sent back to the Sharks training camp where he belongs.

That’s just me 2c.

1. When I saw the Lions 22 for the first test, I could only think “Who are the great players in this team that are capable of propelling the Lions to victory over a South African team that might have problems, but certainly has a decent quota of great players?”

O’Driscoll is a great player, but is there anyone else? O’Connell is a great club player, but I don’t think he can be called a great international player. Byrne and Roberts certainly seem to have the potential to become great players, but they are not yet there. And would not that be it?

I was also forced to wonder if there has even been a Lions team with fewer great players than this one.

2. Spiro wrote “There were suggestions that if the Lions were thrashed the point of the Lions existing, which is based on the hopes of their fans that they will be successful, would disappear.”

Don’t get me wrong, I believe the Lions have a certain future. But the fact is that they have lost their last 6 tests, and, as I have pointed out before, it’s quite conceivable that they will arrive in Australia in 2013 having lost their last 8 tests and not having won a test since 2001.

If I had it in my power to award Knives Out citizenship of Australia, I would do so. I love him to bits and just want him to come to share my love of the Wallabies. (Of course this is tongue in cheek – I admire KO’s knowledge of rugby and his reasonably rare quality of engaging in fact- rather than emotion-based discussion of the game.)