Lions, Led By An Over-Rated Donkey

BEING NEURO-DIVERGENT and a goalkeeper, I, as a former class-mate so-succinctly told one of my daughters: “march to a different drum”. One of the things I have never got is the aura and some of the mystique of captaincy and leadership.

I have always loved a couple of snippets from George Macdonald Fraser's 'The General Danced At Dawn'; the first of these is the throwaway observation: “The Jocks would follow their “Ruperts” (Anglo-Scottish officers) anywhere, usually out of a morbid fascinations as to what sort of trouble they had led them into”. The second was his report of a devout Roman Catholic footballer removing his crucifix and rosary beads from round his neck and hanging them up on his dressing room peg, then picking up the ball and leading his team out to face Celtic with the exhortation: “Right Lads, lets get intae these Fenians”.

On a reality scale, I remember interviewing the late Hibernian and Scotland Legend Lawrie Reilly on the subject of his great friend and team-mate Gordon Smith, a man who led his club and country in spite of him not fitting the captaincy template of the time.

“Gordon never shouted, or clapped his hands for more action, he led by example”, said Reilly. “We followed him gladly, I think it was a case of, Gordon set such high standards we didn't want to let him down”.

If “The Coach as God” is a North American thing, then “The Captain as God” is probably an English thing. The story is told of the untouchable Bobby Moore, the man who collected the World Cup from the late Queen, at Wembley in 1966, departing the England camp after one international and, on the way out, saying to Manager Alf Ramsey: “Cheers, see you next time Boss”. To which Ramsey pointedly replied: “Yes, if I select you”.

So, my dear friends in the English Rugby Media are positively salivating at the much-leaked news of Maro Itoje being named as Captain of the British and Irish Lions today. He will be the first English Lions' Captain since Martin Johnson in 2001. Johnston was an out and out thug, Itoje isn't quite as bad, but, he's a penalty machine, badly in need of strong refereeing and as far as I'm concerned, he should be nowhere near the captaincy.

But, he's got the job, the English are orgasmic over the appointment, Me – Ah hae ma doots.

I barely watched the much-hyped team announcement on the official Lions' You Tube channel. I did feel dreadfully sorry for the wonderful Lee McKenzie, having to sit next to Ugo Moyne for a ceremony which was very-much a case of aren't we English wonderful!!

The Lions kindly provided a wee box at the side, in which Dan Cole and Ben Youngs would provide comment – which amounted to cheering loudly every time an England player was named, complaining bitterly when one of their pals missed out, and obviously trying to think of something to say about those players from elsewhere, and showing their total ignorance of the qualities of most of the Scots named. Tellingly, I don't think they had a clue who Scott Cummings, who richly deserves his call-up, even was.

For the record the 2025 Scottish Lions will be: Pierre Schoeman, Zander Fagerson, Scott Cummings, Finn Russell, Duhan van der Merwe, Sione Tuipulotu, Huw Jones and Blair Kinghorn. Eight Scots, more than we've had for some tours previously, but, in my view fewer than we deserved. I felt, at least one of our back rowers should have gone, while Ben White must have been close and quite how Darcy Graham's X-Factor hasn't been recognised is beyond me.

Their task now is to stay fit and get on the aircraft, then to impress in the early games to make the Test squad. I wish them good luck. I feel all eight could make the match-day Test squad.

So, the waiting is over, the squad has been named. However, as with so-much around the Lions these days, I felt the whole announcement rigmarole was over-hyped, over-English and, if you were one of the mugs who paid good money to be there in person, greatly over-priced.

Now, we can wait for the announcement of the Scotland squad for our own Summer Tour, and with these eight guys out of contention, opportunity knocks for some of our lesser lights, to show what they can do.