2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia

@Billy-Webb said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:

Thought provoking post @Dodge
The concern I have with Lions Tours is the media circus it has become (my perception - in which I may well be alone, granted).
I think for the players, both Lions tourists and the respective host nation players, it remains something incredibly special. It is likely highly unrealistic, but I wouldn't mind if it returned to being a celebration of rugby, rather than the win-at-all-costs scenarios it now feels like.

As I said - that is my perception and others are well entitled to feel otherwise.

As for future tours, the history of the current set-up works well I think. If they had to fiddle with it, then an Argentina inclusion would be my suggestion. Otherwise, leave a time-tested concept alone.

One aside question Dodge: what did you mean by:
@Dodge said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:

South Africa would likely deserve a tour and I hope they would put more effort into it than they did in 2009

My memory is that it was a tight, enthralling series, with great rugby and it was very well supported in SA. What did you perceive differently?

My memory of the 2009 tour is that the test matches were great (and sorry i wasn't clear that they were and were well supported) but the midweek games etc were hosted in empty stadiums in weird places and players weren't released - it felt so so different from 1997 where every game was a cauldron.

@Dodge

Fuck Haskell and double fuck his "brand". He's a self promoting salesman and has been for years. Even when he was playing he was always wanking on about protecting "the brand". The brand being him. Full of corporate buzzwords, so much so that every conversation with him is like a game of Wankword Bingo.

<cato takes a moment and a sedative>

Anyway, back to the Lions. This tour has felt a little flat in parts, which I feel has been casued by the less than stellar opposition to begin with, on the back of all the media bet up about the Lions only having to turn up 'cos Aus are in such a shit place at the moment. We then have a couple of sterner mid week games and the tests, both of which were bloody hard fought wins and things are a bit more lively. Another thing that I think has affected things is the last tour under the covid shadow. There were so many restrictions around movement, participation, mixing etc that it was nigh on impossible to put on a true Lions tour. So for me SA get a pass.

I do wish that Aus had allowed more of the Wallabies to play in the midweek games, particularly the early ones though and in planning terms I think that will be looked on as a mistake in looking at the success of the tour.

As to having alternative opposition such as the PIs, the dual problem there is the "growing the game" v money. There is nowhere near enough money in Fiji, Samoa etc to support a professional Lions trip, even for one game and holding the game in Aus or NZ does fuck all for "growing the game", so I'm not sure that, in the professional environment, that works. Mind you, I don't think the warm up games, be they in Dublin, Hong Kong or wherever, are actually much use either.

@Dodge said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:

My memory of the 2009 tour is that the test matches were great (and sorry i wasn't clear that they were and were well supported) but the midweek games etc were hosted in empty stadiums in weird places and players weren't released - it felt so so different from 1997 where every game was a cauldron.

You may well be right, and truth be told, what one remembers does become fact for the purposes of one's perception. I am as prone to that as anyone.

For fun, below the fixtures and results:

I can't recall whether Boks were withheld from the non-test games. Highly probable.
I do recall that Bok fans and the local media all felt the Springboks were going into that first test undercooked.

@Billy-Webb

It's possible that the Boks not being part of the warm up games may well have been down to covid restrictions. Different bubbles and what have you.

@Catogrande
That was the 2021 tour.

@Dodge and I are recalling 2009. :winking_face:

@Billy-Webb

Ah. That has no relevance whatsoever. Try and keep it pertinent will you both please?

:grinning_face:

There should be an enormous tariff on podcast equipment. The entire podcast industry has allowed the opinions of far too many bog-average ex-internationals to be heard by far too many. Why in the fuck would anyone listen to what a complete flog and desperately average footballer like James Haskell has got to say?

The Lions tour is one of the last "traditions" that exist in rugby. Grand Slam tours happen every single November. Everyone plays each other so often that it's almost mundane. The World Cup has robbed test rugby of much of its lustre.

You can look at this tour through the eyes of box score piston wristed gibbons and think it was one-sided and a bit boring. Or you can look at packed houses, fan engagement, media engagement (non rugby media types talking about test rugby for once) the incredible touring fans filling all parts of Australia (most are up here at the moment before flying back to Sydney).

And it means a shit ton to the players too, on both sides. Players want to make that squad. Then players want to make that test team. And on the other side, players definitely plan careers around Lions tours.

Long may it live.

If The B&I Lions Pty Ltd want to make comment about the relative strength of the mid-week teams they get to play, perhaps they could, just before they send the fucking CEO out to spout shit, have a quick squiz at the team sheets of not only their own squad, but every professional club in Europe that is chock full of Kiwis, Aussies and Saffers that might be providing them with a sterner challenge if they hadn't been bought.

I wouldn't be expecting the kiwi Super sides shorn of their best players providing that much stronger opposition next tour.

@mariner4life

yes, international rugby is absolutely on a four year cycle now
the lions are a bit of an outlyer from the cycle (or maybe not) because they are also on a four year cycle, which is just about right i'd think

@mariner4life

fuck yeah
imagine if all those SH pro players on NH contracts were still playing in SH domestic comps, which is just how it was in olden times
seeing a player that went to the same school i did, running out for the BI lions in a test match . . . hmmm

@mohikamo said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:

@mariner4life

fuck yeah
imagine if all those SH pro players on NH contracts were still playing in SH domestic comps, which is just how it was in olden times
seeing a player that went to the same school i did, running out for the BI lions in a test match . . . hmmm

It will be closer to a two year cycle once the SA tour and Nations Championship kicks off, particularly given how lucrative the latter is likely to be.

lol i came here to tell everyone to go find Drew Mitchell blind and somehow allowed on camera. Hilarious stuff.

A series that ended 2-1. A series that turned, in the end, on one play and one missed tackle. Sell out crowds of nearly 250,000 people at iconic sporting venues. Millions of dollars made for the Aussie economy. Tens of thousands of British and Irish tourists going home after a trip of a life time. Much debate about referees and TMOs. Thousands of yarns told over jugs of beer. Friendships forged between good rugby folk.

Let's stop right now all talk of the British and Irish Lions not touring Australia again.

Roll on 2037!

@Dodge

Thought-provoking post.

I think the BIL are a throwback to the time when money was less important than now and being in the squad was something very, very special to the players and it's the one major tour which has survived the pro era.

It's different to the constant round of 6N & RC competitions and something we talk about in the same context as World Cups - if not more. I'm really looking forward to the Boks doing full tours to NZ again for exactly the same reason.

Apart from tweaking the warm-up games against the smaller countries, just leave it as it is and don't let money fuck with it as it has in other parts of the game.

EDIT: I'd also add too much gamesmanship and shit-stirring has developed with Lions tours causing a sour taste rather than the festival of Rugby it should be. Both the Lions and the host countries need to stop this sort of corrosive shit.

@Victor-Meldrew said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:

too much gamesmanship and shit-stirring has developed with Lions tours causing a sour taste

This.

2017 was the start of my disconnection from rugby - there was no 'phew, Lions got away with one at the end' from their fans, it was 'Kieran was offside' 'ref was 100% right' etc. You saw it in this series with the cleanout at the end of the second test. Blaming the Aussie for not coming through the gate, banging on about simulation - it's all distraction from a critical call. You can argue about the ruling, but it's the shithousery around it that left a bad taste in my mouth. Holier than thou, with a plank in the eye.

Media, Woodward, Alastair Campbell, Gats, Farrell all have plenty to answer for, but the end result is a bit shit.

The BBC's player ratings for the tour which seem consistently too high for the Irish players.

@Victor-Meldrew

Would double upvote the last bit if I could.

@nzzp said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:

@Victor-Meldrew said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:

too much gamesmanship and shit-stirring has developed with Lions tours causing a sour taste

This.

2017 was the start of my disconnection from rugby - there was no 'phew, Lions got away with one at the end' from their fans, it was 'Kieran was offside' 'ref was 100% right' etc. You saw it in this series with the cleanout at the end of the second test. Blaming the Aussie for not coming through the gate, banging on about simulation - it's all distraction from a critical call. You can argue about the ruling, but it's the shithousery around it that left a bad taste in my mouth. Holier than thou, with a plank in the eye.

Media, Woodward, Alastair Campbell, Gats, Farrell all have plenty to answer for, but the end result is a bit shit.

I don't know what it was like in NZ at the time of "that" call but here in the UK it was mainly either "phew, we got away with that one" or just some embarrassed grins. What I do recall though is much frothing at the mouth from NZ, from fans, from pundits, from media and even from some of the guys on here. I know that if the boot had been on the other foot I'd have been spewing too, so I get that, but all the talk of conspiracies, deals and fixes was something to behold.

Re the bolded bit, I'm right with you here, such whining and so on should have no place in the game, but do not pretend that it is one sided. Rassie is the past master here (maybe he has a poster of Woodward in his bedroom)? Schmidt and the Aussie media and pundits have had an ongoing whinge about the Morgan clear out. And we still hear from Kiwis all over the place about that decision in the deciding test in 2017 and of course barnes in teh French game. And don't forget, Deans did score!

We've all got stuff like this going on in our camps.