Time To Recalibrate Our Expectations Of The Lions Concept?

As we find ourselves, at the time of writing, just shy of the announcement of the British and Irish Lions 23 for the first test in Brisbane, the Lions tour has once again been the centre of more than its fair share of controversy. This time, unlike the fairly straightforward “should we even go?” question of 2021, there are a whole plethora of issues plaguing the tour. There’s no straightforward solution to some of the problems faced by Andy Farrell and the Lions management so the question is – is it time to rethink what we expect from the Lions in today’s rugby environment?

The first issue that has drawn ire in some quarters this tour is the squad selection, or more accurately the additions in the last few weeks, of players not in the original squad. For some people, selection for the Lions is a just reward for being the crème de la crème, the very most elite players from the British Isles over the last tour cycle. For those people, there is understandable frustration about some of the call-ups since the squad arrived in Australia.

There has always been a need to amend the squad due to injuries and while players like Darcy Graham would have been unlucky to miss out on the original touring squad, the addition of some like Jamie Osborne and Scotland’s Ewan Ashman have raised a few more eyebrows. The issue that must be addressed here is that with the way rugby is played in 2025, player minutes must be closely managed and more extended rest periods are required – 2 tests in a week with a game in between is simply not manageable.

Off the field, the presence of the Lions in Australia and their activities have been questioned. A newspaper report just this morning revealed that not a single player attended a wreath-laying service at the grave of Robert Seddon, the captain of the original 1888 tour who died during the tour.

Whispers about the lack of hand-shaking and school visiting on the Lions’ social media channels have started in the last week or so, and this has been more or less confirmed in reports that the Lions players didn’t take time to meet any of the children at a school in Perth which was being used as a training base.

Alongside this, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that any Australian journalists have been ejected from the Lions’ travelling reporters WhatsApp group on order of the Lions management (presumably headed by the tour manager, new SRU hire David Nucifora). For many people (myself included), time spent exploring and integrating with the host country is the main reason to go on a Lions tour, so the lack of these opportunities looks extremely disappointing.

All that remains now is the idea that the sanctity of the Lions jersey as the reward for the best of the best, or the idea that the Lions tour is a major cultural event, have both been sacrificed in pursuit of a test series win.

The issue here, for me at least, is that winning a test series has never been what the Lions is really about. Sure, a series win is important and a great marker for bragging rights with the southern hemisphere nations, but they rarely make it into the history of Lions lore. There are moments from tests that people will always remember: George North backpacking The Bigot on the last trip to Australia stands out, or Sean O’Brien finishing a brilliant team try in New Zealand, but ask a hundred people what their favourite Lions memory is and the final whistle of a final test might feature only two or three times. There will be no “Mistaken Identity” on this tour, not even a “Captain Zebo” moment and those are things that people remember. Be honest, you skip through the game footage on old tour documentaries to get to the choir or the court.

If winning the test series is to become what it’s all about, then changes and accommodations will need to be made in future to the way the Lions operates.

To keep the selection purists happy, midweek games would need to be heavily curtailed so that the players who are rightfully selected are still fit to play in the tests. If the focus on is on increased, more intense training sessions to hone the skills of those players, expectations will have to be managed on the “extra-curriculars” that are available.

The question is – is it worth it? If the Lions becomes a relentless pursuit of 3 wins in the tests, are we prepared to throw away all the things that have made it great for 140 years to achieve that?

To my mind, it’s not even close to worth it.

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