No contract must be signed with the Australians until they promise faithfully
and in writing to field their full teams in all five (assuming they have a
fifth Super-14 team by then) of their warm-up games, together with Australia
A. That gives the basis for a proper tour, and it must be a tour where the
Lions are in situ in the Test venue for one week before each of the
internationals. No gadding madly about the country.
The responsibility on the four individual national unions at home, on the
bodies representing the clubs and provinces, and on the Heineken Cup,
Guinness Premiership and Magners League, is massive. They have to change
their season so that there is an absolute minimum of a gap of three weeks
between the final matches of the home season and the first match of the
Lions’ tour.
Never again must we inflict on the Lions such a shockingly amateurish
preparation. And never again must they be treated as the poor relations,
when everyone else regards them as the kings. There must be that three-week
gap for rest and recuperation and so that the Lions can put all their
systems in place before they play their first game.
And who knows, they might even be afforded the luxury of being able to field
their finest Test combination for the first Test itself. When you think of
the daggers that British and Irish rugby plunged into the backs of the Lions
before they even departed from Heathrow, it is absolutely staggering that
they have been so competitive.
The Stephen Jones debate
Lest victory for the Lions would be little more than consolation after an
excellent first two Tests, I can’t help but feel that team selection for the
final match is a consolation for many of the Lions picked for Saturday’s
game. The Lions management say they want to win, so on that basis what has
Shane Williams done to warrant selection? True, the Lions are weakened by
injury but Luke Fitzgerald must feel hard done by. I'm sure he'd have taken
a poke in the eye for selection in the third Test. At the same time, my
award for luckiest Lion, despite not getting any game time in the Tests, is
Harry Ellis. His performance against the Emerging Boks was poor and Mike
Blair must have felt he could be no worse than him, particularly for a place
on the bench. I would be interested to hear who you think, other than those
injured and returned home, is the unluckiest Lion in the squad? Andrew
Peters
SJ: Andrew, I may be wrong but I think they have gone for Shane because
they feel it might be quite an open and even a reasonably loose game with
lots of counter-attack. Luke has been excellent but he is not a dynamic
attacker. Mike Blair is a superb player but he has simply not been on form
here, I am afraid. My unluckiest Lion? There are a few, but I do think that
if James Hook had been able to play at any time on this tour outside Jamie
Roberts and Brian O’Driscoll he could have mounted a major challenge.
It's time we changed the scrum. For too long now, the hit has replaced the
scrummage. It has become a contest on who can out-hit the other side, rather
than who can push the other off the ball. In the process, the scrum
collapses repeatedly and props cannot get a true bind which leads to the
constant penalty count. Also, the front row get away with driving up, boring
in, backing off etc, and the scrum half can feed crooked as the ref’s
attention is focused on the hit and all the possible law transgressions that
can happen in a blink of an eye. The present scrum is also turning off the
new generation of players. My son is 9 and is very large for his age. He no
longer wants to watch the international games because it makes him scared he
might get hurt when he eventually gets to play in contested scrums. Instead
of “crouch, touch, engage” let’s have “engage, bind, feed”
and it being illegal to push till the ball is fed (i.e. the way we used to
play). This removes the ability for props and hookers to upset the
opponents’ scrum and cause a penalty, removes a risk of injury, allows the
ref to focus on less law transgression, speeds up the game and will
ultimately be more entertaining for us all. Robert, Guildford
SJ: I totally agree, Robert. It has become silly and it is still dangerous
even though the current mechanism for packing down has been introduced. The
coming-together should be soft and the weight then comes on as the scrum
half prepares to put the ball in. We might then be able to get the game
going without seven re-sets.
I refereed at a high level throughout the 1970s when, of course, we didn't
have yellow cards. I see them as having a very apt colour as they enable
officials to avoid responsibility. The yellow card should be used only for
technical or cynical offences (jersey pulling, blocking a player chasing a
high ball etc). Dangerous play or wilful violence should always be punished
with a red card. Moreover, I would write this into the laws so that referees
had no option but to apply the ultimate sanction to dirty players. John
Kilburn
SJ: Again, I agree completely, John. When the sin bin was brought in for
the first time in rugby I believed then that it would often be used as a
cop-out for referees.
Credit where credit is due. The Springboks were obviously so scared of the
threat posed by the Lions that they could not allow their players to come
into contact with them in provincial matches, and having experienced the
attacking potential of the Lions thought maiming was their best defence,
especially when they got it in early. I would not exclude the All Blacks
from this strategy as BOD can affirm. So credit to them for a well thought
out and effective strategy. Cenzo
SJ: Ah, just a tiny note of cynicism there, unless I am very much mistaken.
The more time we spend whinging about bad luck and bad refereeing the more we
are writing the Springboks’ pre-match team talk for Saturday. Surely being
told you only won the hardest game of your career because you were lucky and
your opponents weren't is all the motivation one needs to raise the bar even
higher? If we keep complaining about the referee everyone will think we're
Kiwis - and we don't want that do we? Mike Hewison, Farnborough
SJ: Good grief! You are right. OK chaps, any complaining about any referee
is banned in Rolling Maul forever in case people think we are Kiwis.
I’m writing to you from Santiago, Chile, but I'm a great fan of the Pumas. I
have reviewed the Lions playing history and they have been in Argentina
before, I think in the 1920s. It would be great to have them back here in
South America. Lots of people would go to see them, not only from Argentina,
but from other parts of South America (I would go, and probably many other
Chileans would also). Imagine the Pumas against the Lions in the River Plate
Stadium or at the Boca Juniors Stadium. It would have a great effect on the
game in this part of the world. Demetrio Infante
SJ: Thanks to everyone who has written in with Lions tour suggestions, many
of them really superb. What about a Lions tour to the Americas - Tests
against Canada, USA then on to Argentina for a three-Test series plus four
provincial games and, as I said the other day, another against a South
American XV? It could have a dramatic impact.
