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In recent posts many Roarers have expressed their excitement for the upcoming rugby season and in particular the 2013 Lions tour.
I have found myself in keen discussion with friends over the Lions tour, but in our case, it has usually been about how awesome the 2001 tour was to this country.
It will be a hard act to follow for the 2013 Lions, emulating the extraordinary achievements of their 2001 counterparts.
Those of us who were around at the time not only witnessed a great Test series but also a great tour.
The 2001 Lions are easily the best edition to have arrived on our shores (the 1971 Lions played two matches but no Tests). There are several reasons for this.
The 2001 Lions were man for man a better outfit than the Wallabies and by rights should have won the series.
They were coached by the formidable Graham Henry and captained by the equally formidable Martin Johnson.
But the Wallabies were no pushovers themselves. They were still a great team coached by the legendary Rod McQueen and captained by the equally legendary John Eales.
In the end, the Wallabies won the series not because they were necessarily the better players, but they ultimately played the smarter rugby.
The England players, who comprised the bulk of the 2001 Lions, learnt their lessons well and returned in 2003 to claim the World Cup.
The other thing that made the tour such a success was the quality of the non-Test matches. With the exception of the Brumbies match, squeezed in between the first and second Tests, most of the other teams selected contained the best players available.
Most people would have fond memories of the Australia A game in Gosford, when the Lions suffered their first defeat (albeit unluckily for them) but provided encouragement for Australian fans that this Lions team, which had until then crushed all before them, could actually be beaten.
In 2013, it seems this new practice of Player Management System (PMS – or does this stand for something else?) will be utilised.
This means the five major provinces are likely to be without their leading Wallaby candidates, thus depriving fans of a quality match-up.
The practice of PMS, or rotation policy, is currently incurring the wrath of fans in cricket, who feel they are being short-changed of seeing the best available players most of the time, especially in Tests.
The ARU needs to be careful that they don’t overdo this PMS to the extent that it will kill future Lions tours. If too many leading players are going to be quarantined from non-Test matches, then the quality of the contest will suffer accordingly.
In recent years, we’ve seen European nations send severely weakened teams to Australia, which has done little for the vibrancy of the June tests.
It seems both cricket and rugby are discovering that in their quest to squeeze ever more matches of various importance into the calendar in order to satisfy the insatiable appetite of pay TV, suddenly players are breaking down from over-exposure.
Perhaps sporting organisations need to realise they can’t have their cake and eat it too, and more pragmatic scheduling might need to be considered.
For the ARU, if they’re going to schedule 13-14 Tests per year on top of 18-21 Super Rugby matches, plus a Lions tour, eventually something’s going to have to give.
And it seems it is the players’ bodies that are giving out.
2012 saw an unprecedented injury toll among leading Wallabies.
I can’t recall a season like it apart from 1978, when as many as 7-8 leading Wallabies fell by the wayside through the season and subsequent tour of NZ.
The jury is still out as to how many of these injuries were due to natural wear and tear and bad luck, or how many were due to accumulated body stresses of the modern day schedule.
And the future sporting landscape is likely to get even more crowded if, as hoped or expected, sevens rugby takes off at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
Suddenly there will be a clamour for a high profile sevens circuit during the prime time of the season.
So how will a sevens program of anything from 7-20 games be squeezed into a season already featuring 13-14 Tests and 18-21 Super Rugby matches?
Australian cricket is discovering that while it is desirable to play BBL in the peak December-January period, it is also having an unintended adverse effect on the quality of the Test team.
Something is going to have to give, but at the moment it seems the only concession is players’ bodies that are breaking down under the strain of too much concentrated rugby.
I don’t confess to have the answers, fellow Roarers, but perhaps some of you out there do?
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.