Lions Led By Donkeys?

IN YESTERDAY'S blog post, I suggested, perhaps the current British and Irish Lions' Tour of Australia would be the final Lions Tour. I am willing, on more-sober reflection to admit I could be premature in that forecast, but, I still believe the concept of a Lions' Tour as the Best of British taking on the Colonials might be: A dead man walking”.

I now embark on one of my occasional meanders off-piste, but I will return to the subject in hand.

In the days when the Scottish Football Association was controlled by the seemingly all-powerful International Committee, that body did a sterling job in kidding-on the Tartan Army that Scottish Football was actually stronger than the reality. This was a simple enough task for the first 60 or so years of organised football. During that time, the SFA remained strictly a British Isles entity – The Home International Championship was all that mattered, Scotland played England, Ireland and Wales, none of the other continental nations was fit to take-on the four titans of the game, and of the HIC games , the only thing which mattered was beating England.

The lesser foreign nations might have formed FIFA, they might even, in 1930, have initiated a quaintly-named World Cup, but, such daft notions were beneath the Home Nations. In 1929, Scottish isolationism ended with an end-of-season European Tour, in which we emerged undefeated from games against Norway, Netherlands and Germany. The following year France were beaten 2-0 in Paris, a year later, a 0-5 loss to Austria and a 0-3 defeat by Italy in Rome were explained away by the fact while players from clubs such as Clyde, Cowdenbeath and East Fife featured in the Scotland line-ups, no Old Firm players were on the trip.

By the time, in 1939, World War II came along to halt football, Scotland had played 15 internationals against European opponents, winning 10, but in their games against the top European nations of that decade: Austria and Italy, we came up short.

The Home Nations rejoined FIFA in 1947, but it wasn't until a decade later that their World Cup qualification campaigns pitted them against European opponents. In qualifying campaigns for the World Cup or European Championships, involving only the Home Nations in the group, Scotland has qualifed in two of three occasions. In qualifying campaigns where we have been in groups with continental nations, our successful qualifying percentage goes down to 11 of 25.

I would suggest Scottish Rugby is now where Scottish Football was before 1950 (the first time we entered the World Cup). We are used to playing the same opponents on a regular basis: England, France, Ireland, Italy and Wales in the Six Nations; the “Established” Colonial Nations: Australia, New Zealand and South Africa on a regular basis, while of late, the leading Tier Two Nations: Argentina, Fiji, Tonga, Japan, Georgia etc – on a regular basis. There is an accepted pecking order in World Rugby.

However, in my view, given World Rugby's determination to grow the game and expand the number of nations playing internationally, this situation in the game, whereby there is a group of Establishment nations who have all the perks could be on its last legs.

For instance, the use of World Rugby Ranking Points, determined by international match results, is a game changer. In past years, results such as Scotland losing to Fiji would not matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. However, if Scotland losing to Fiji has a negative effect on their World Ranking and as a follow-on, Scotland's chances of a better World Cup draw, then failure by the SRU to address the problem would be dereliction of duty.

The Scotland team that lost in Suva was an under-strength squad, minus eight players on Lions' duty, plus a couple of others on the injured list. That defeat, disappointing though it was, may not have too-great an effect on our standing. But, say, in 2029, if we again have a good representation on the proposed Lions' Tour to New Zealand, and we lose to a couple of Tier Two nations, hampering our World Ranking – well, might that be the moment when the SRU had second thoughts on releasing players for Lions' duty.

Suppose too, Wales lose to Japan, Ireland trip-up against Georgia or England mirrors a particularly-unfortunate day for their Football team and lose to the USA, with the consequential bad effect on their World Ranking, then I would say, for all the combined team's merit as a cash-generator, then the Lions, as we know them, would be dead.

We may be some years away from the rankings in Rugby Union being as crucial in international terms as they are in Football, but, a flatter playing field is on the way, and the Lions will be a casualty when this happens.

The Lions worked in the Amateur Era, today, in the Open Era, the team is an anachronism; as a Best of the Best concept, it goes against all the norms of professional sport. Football embraced professionalism a century or more before Rugby Union – as a result of this, that game has never had anything like the Lions. The strictly amateur Middlesex Wanderers used to do a Lions-type job for that game – they were killed-off when the Football Association did away with the difference between Amateur and Professional.

I may be making too huge a leap here, but, I can see the Lions going the same way, as Rugby Union expands and becomes, in its governance, more like the round-ball game.

While I am on the Lions beat, I do have a bit of a problem with players such as Ewan Ashman, Darcy Graham, Rory Sutherland, England's Jamie George and Ireland's Tom Clarkson being flown-in as cover, to hold tackle bags and get a short cameo off the bench for what in Lions terminology is: “The Dirt Trackers XV” - that is tarnishing the legacy I feel, although I am obviously pleased for the players concerned.

With world-wide jet travel it is just too easy today for the Tour management to whistle-up replacements or additional players. There is something romantic about, as happened on the 1959 Tour to Australia and New Zealand, the Lions being so-short of specialists that Hughie McLeod had to play hooker in one provincial game in NewZealand – the Lions still won.