There are some striking similarities between the debutants of 2001 and those in this Lions series, and the opportunity to make their mark on the international scene is still there this time around.
With the plethora of rugby in both hemispheres these days it can be hard to keep track of players in the opposite hemisphere but the Lions tour is one of those things, just like the Rugby World Cup, where the whole rugby community will be watching.
If you play well on this stage, you’re guaranteed to get chins wagging in London in two years’ time.
I say debutants but I really want to change that to rookies because some of these players aren’t/weren’t on debut but have/had the opportunity in a Lions series to announce themselves to the world.
In 2001 Brian O’Driscoll announced himself to the world by tearing apart the Wallabies World Cup-winning backline.
Well I say the world but those in the north might have already suspected that what Keith Wood had said about the young Irishman was true.
For those that don’t know, Wood was talking to a rugby journo in 1999 when he pointed to a 20-year-old O’Driscoll and said:
“That fella’s the future. He will end up as the greatest ever player from this island. Come and meet Brian O’Driscoll, you will be spending half a lifetime writing about him.”
So while O’Driscoll debuted for Ireland two years earlier we in the Southern Hemisphere got our first good look at him during the Lions tour.
It seems fitting that 12 years later we are still talking about him and I won’t do him the injustice of trying to explain how good he is.
I will simply say that from about 20 minutes into game one of the 2001 series he has been heavily marked by every opposition he has played against since and still managed to bamboozle them all.
Jason Robinson had played three Tests for England in 2001 and was rushed straight into the starting Lions side, making a mockery of Chris Latham in the opening minutes of the first Test.
Within three or four minutes English rugby fans were breathing a sigh of relief as Robinson had showed the same blatant disregard for modern organised defence that he had in league and you just knew he was good.
Israel Folau is in a similar position to Robinson as a fellow code-hopper. Fast-tracked through to the Wallabies for obvious reasons he has the same opportunity with the world watching to stake his claim as one of the world’s most exciting players.
Izzy has the kind of physique and skills that slow and uncoordinated fat kids like me dreamed of.
If Izzy kills it this series it might make it impossible for league to ever get him back because the ARU will go to the negotiating table with legs trembling like teenage schoolgirls meeting a pop star.
They will offer him so much money that league will never be able to match it and why wouldn’t they too, with his clean lifestyle and gentle nature he could easily be the face of Australian rugby.
Justin Harrison made his debut in the third Test in 2001 at the age of 27.
While Harrison was a mainstay in the Wallabies until he went abroad in 2004 he played the game of his career that day pinching lineout after lineout off the king Martin Johnson, including a late one on the wallabies tryline that probably won the series.
Ben Mowen is in a similar situation at age 28. He is a late bloomer but will be hoping to kickstart his career late just like Harrison with a world cup berth in two years’ time his ultimate goal.
I don’t think anyone expects Christian Lealiifano to set this series alight.
I think his role will be one of solidity as opposed to brilliance but that is not so much a comment on him but his role in the team.
With a running fly-half inside him and electric runners outside him his role will be as the cool head in the backline but he will know that solid performances in this series are the platform to launch his international career.
While Jonathon Sexton is 27 and has played 36 tests for Ireland he hasn’t really stamped his mark outside of the Six Nations and I’m including him in this group because he is ready now to make his mark.
I think all this talk about O’Connor has allowed Sexton to glide under the radar but he will be firmly on the radar if he doesn’t get the passes right.
He is seen in the north as a genuine ball-playing flyhalf but we in the south live and breathe ball playing and we’ll make up our own minds thank you very much.
Seriously though, he is tough as nails and the boy can play; even if it looks like he’s never seen the inside of a gym.
I think its one of rugby’s great tragedies that he and O’Driscoll aren’t going to spend more of their careers together because Sexton could have made O’Driscoll even better.
No disrespect intended to Ronan O’Gara but O’Driscoll carried the Irish backline for a decade as both runner and creator and its scary to think how good he could have been in the noughties with a more creative flyhalf like Sexton to ask more questions of the defence.
Rod Macqueen took a huge punt on a young 20-year-old openside flanker in 2001 but it paid off as George Smith showed the veteran Neil Back that openside is a young man’s game.
Smith was monumental at the breakdown in that series and proved that some kids are just born to play on the big stage.
12 years on and Smith is still one of the best over the ball and all Australian rugby fans are hoping that he can play some part in this series.
Michael Hooper and Liam Gill both debuted for the wallabies last year but are yet to establish themselves in the international arena.
People in the north still talk about Pocock and rightly so after the 2011 world cup, but this is an opportunity for Hooper to build on last year and Gill to show what he is made of.
If this was European football, Australia would keep Pocock and Hooper and Barcelona and Real Madrid would be in a bidding war for Gill, so strong is Australia in this area at the moment.
But lucky for us this isn’t football and we will have the pleasure of watching them duke it out over the next decade for test spots.
And last but certainly not least a special mention in this list must go to the English Props, Mako Vunipola and Alex Corbisiero.
With 9 and 16 test caps, and at ages 22 and 24 respectively, they are both rookies in the front row game.
Vunipola has the ability to play like another backrower with his damaging runs in the loose while Corbisiero is the scrummager.
Warren Gatland made a huge mistake by leaving Corbisiero out but was gifted a reprieve when Cian Healy was ruled out of the tour through injury.
Unexpectedly, Corbisiero got the nod over Vunipola for the first Test and with the Lions side being named a day after the wallabies side was leaked you have to wonder whether Ben Alexander’s inclusion was the reason for this.
Regardless, both will play at some stage and both have the ability in this series to instil fear in opposition front rows for years to come.
The thing about being a rookie is that nobody knows too much about you and therein lies the opportunity to hit the opposition with something they aren’t prepared for.
Coaches take punts on rookies in the hope that they have the mettle upstairs to lift for the big occasion and in a big series like a Lions series, often these aces up the sleeve can be the difference.
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