British and Irish Lions Rugby

Some people think Warren Gatland is a good coach for the British and Irish Lions. You can’t dispute his impressive record with Wales—two grand slams—his supporters cry. Some people probably think the Earth is flat. Gatland is a coach lacking in imagination, skill, intelligence or tact. His lack of all four traits has been demonstrated on this tour.

Last Saturday, as we sat among a hostile Aussie crowd, I began to see the reason for their derision— why they don’t respect Northern hemisphere rugby—even if coached by a nominal Kiwi. A few minutes into the game, the Lions are on top and have an attacking line-out midway between the Wallaby 22 and the tryline. The Lions opt for a 12 man line-out. The most creative player of his generation is thrown into a line-out in an attempt to maul the ball over the line.

Flashback to 1999, Lens: A Gatland-trained Ireland is five minutes away from its lowest ebb. Ireland pile in for a 13-man line-out. Argentina successfully defend and Ireland are out of the World Cup. For the first two test matches whenever the Lions have the ball, the option is for normally creative players like Johnny Sexton or Brian O’Driscoll to hoof the ball aimlessly, and for a big winger to chase and attempt to catch or at least win a penalty. Leigh Halfpenny is normally unerring and kicks the points. That’s it—Gatland doesn’t need to leave his game plan in a taxi for the Aussies to figure it out—kick, chase—if you don’t fit into the plan (i.e. you’re not a 6'4'' and 18-stone winger), you’re dropped.

Gatland is lucky: Kurtley Beale wears the right boots in the Suncorp, and he is another losing Lions coach trying to salvage his reputation.

Gatland said he would pick his Lions test side on form, not on reputation and not on nationality. Yet every decision he has made, it appears at first sight, has been based on nationality or familiarity. He had a chance to lay down a marker by selecting a non-Welsh captain with two former Lions captains in his squad. Yet he chose Sam Warburton, who wasn’t even assured of his place on the Welsh side during the Six Nations.

Gatland’s unwavering loyalty to the Welsh players he knows so well could be justified if they were the dominant European team over the last four years, but before this year’s Six Nations revival, Wales had lost eight tests in a row and had been blitzed by a rampant Ireland in the first half in Cardiff. They ultimately won a very poor Six Nations by beating a callow English team.

Every 50-50 decision has gone the way of his Welsh stalwarts. Warburton was playing poorly and was given a chance to play his way into form. Selecting first-time tourist Warburton as captain only added to the pressure he was under to rediscover his form. During the first test, Sexton deferred to Paul O’Connell as often as he asked Warburton. O’Connell was the real leader in that first test.

Alex Cuthbert endured an ineffective tour and was chosen over the exciting Simon Zebo for the first test. A woeful performance from Cuthbert was salvaged by a well-taken try. He dropped to the bench for the second test when Tuilagi was a better option as an impact player.

Another player enjoying a torrid tour was Mike Phillips, and he was chosen over the claims of Ben Youngs and Conor Murray, who has impressed. Philips was totally ineffective in the first test and was only dropped, it appears now, because he couldn’t train in the week leading up to the second test. Murray again impressed when he replaced Youngs, yet Phillips was given the nod again. Gatland also ignored the form of Sean O’Brien—a player the Wallabies fear. When Gatland was short of back-line options, instead of calling for Scotland’s Tim Visser, England’s Chris Ashton or Ireland’s Andrew Trimble, he called upon the retired, former Welsh wizard Shane Williams.

But all of the above decisions had some logic and could be justified—Zebo is inexperienced, Murray’s pass can sometimes be laboured, Warburton did eventually find form and is a quiet but effective leader. However, then the Wallabies won and Gatland lost it—he reverted to type. A record 10 Welsh players were selected. This from a team that lost eight internationals on the trot, a team that has lost to the Wallabies on the last eight occasions.

Missing the unofficial tour captain, Paul O’Connell, and the official tour captain, Warburton, Gatland could have turned to Brian O’Driscoll (former Leinster, Ireland and Lions Captain, 132 caps for his country, 245 test points, 17 Lions caps), the finest centre of his generation. Instead, he dropped O’Driscoll from the match day 23 and appointed Welsh man Alun Wyn Jones as captain. True, O’Driscoll has performed to his high standards, but he has been a rock in defence and his very presence can’t be underestimated in a team lacking leadership. His stats on the tour: 250 metres, 36 tackles and 29 successfully completed passes. 

Gatland drafted in Jamie Roberts to replace O’Driscoll to form an all-Welsh midfield partnership with the underperforming Jonathan Davies, despite O’Driscoll and Roberts forming an effective midfield partnership on the last Lions tour in South Africa. O’Driscoll clearly wasn’t happy with the limited tactics Gatland has employed. With the team selection for the series decider, every 50-50 call went the way of the Welshmen, with Justin Tipuric and Shane Williams the only fit Welsh tourists not to start.

The Lions tour is supposed to be about four nations coming together as one—the best of four nations taking on the rugby powerhouses every four years, playing attractive, winning rugby. For 125 years, the odd political decision notwithstanding, it has largely met that criteria. Gatland has betrayed that tradition. In many ways, whether the Lions win on Saturday or not, it doesn’t matter.

It will be a Welsh victory, ground out by an unimaginative coach using backs as bludgeons and not rapiers. It will be ugly, and the Aussies will be right to smirk. Everyone together now—Aussie, Aussie, Aussie… 

There are few legacies more famous in world rugby circles than that of the British and Irish Lions.

The first Lions fixture and first tour collaboration between the four British home unions took place in 1950. Since then, the world has patiently awaited the naming of each star-studded tour side for an event which, in the modern era, takes place every four years.

The glamour of a Lions tour comes mainly from the idea that the British Isles are putting their best foot forward against their Southern Hemisphere rivals. Since the 15s version of rugby union is not an official Olympic sport, a Lions tour represents the only opportunity for British and Irish athletes to play together under a single banner and to try to accomplish victories as a team which, at least in recent memory, their individual nations mostly have not.

Every four years there is an unbelievable swelling of British and Irish pride, travel agents go mad with requests for tour packages, and the rugby world engages in months of unrivalled speculation about the composition of the increasingly huge tour party that will travel abroad to do battle.

In 2013, the responsibility for those selections falls upon Lions head coach Warren Gatland. 

Few would envy him his task.

The rugby media, which is capable at times of tremendous overreach and overhype, are at full volume ahead of Tuesday's announcement of the squad that will travel to Australia this summer to face what is currently the world's third-ranked team.

So high are the levels of emotion surrounding such events that hardened legends of past Lions tours are often literally brought to tears when they attempt to convey the importance of these moments to the new generation.

Our video shows one such moment from Sir Ian McGeechan in 2009, when—on behalf of all previous Lions players—he implored that group of Lions to break a five test match losing streak and return some sense of pride to the Lions jersey.

On that one occasion, the Lions were successful in defeating a South African team which, by then, had already won the 2009 test series. However, the risk to the Lions' legacy is real and growing.

In 2013, Warren Gatland must try to select a group of players capable of doing what no Lions team has done since the dawn of the new millennium: win an international test series. 

How can a team, any team, with such a dismal record be worth the superstorm of media hype and fan attention that a Lions tour creates? 

Given the modern-day fondness in England for the glory days of the British empire, there exists no other place on earth where the art of nostalgia is taken to such perverse levels.

It is sad that rugby fans in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales must wait every four years to see their optimism rise to such a fever pitch. Individual victories for any of these nations against Southern Hemisphere opposition have become exceedingly rare. It is some measure of how far Northern Hemisphere rugby has fallen that such nations much look to a Lions tour for some hope of besting a Southern Hemisphere opponent.

And yet the mighty Lions have not—not for well over a decade.

It is even sadder when ever-bothersome demographics are brought into the equation. England's population alone, either in general or within the rugby community dwarfs opponents such as New Zealand; on this Lions tour they will face not the mighty All Blacks but one of the Southern Hemisphere's weaker targets in the form of the third-ranked Australians.

Legendary All Black coach Graham Henry said as much when he commented in a Guardian story that "a country with over a million players should be the best team in the world." 

It is time for the present-day generation to end the long string of disappointments that have shrouded recent Lions tours and placed in jeopardy the legacy that past Lions players worked so hard to establish.

If the 15 best players from Britain and Ireland cannot win two of three matches against an opponent the quality of Australia, then it is time for the Northern Hemisphere to take a mercilessly hard look at the way it handles its rugby business, beginning with concepts like the Lions tour.

Jeff Hull is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report.

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