@sparky said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Catogrande It's nothing like the other back rows we have seen on this tour. But I guess all warfare is based on deception.
Indeed but that usually works best when you show your weakness and hide your strengths. Not so clever the other way around. :astonished_face:
That back row, if selected like that, is about the worst combination he could have come up with, that's impressive.
Chessum or Curry should have played 6, Morgan or Pollock should have played 7 and Earl or Conan should have played 8. Impressive to get none of those except Conan in the right position.
Beirne has been bloody awful on this tour in particular
@Dodge I couldn't agree more. I see though that the BBC are now reporting it as being as listed by @sparky but no official confirmation as yet.
With Chessum on the bench and Beirne starting, we are well covered, overloaded really, with second rows but light on proper back row cover. Maybe Farrell is shitting bricks over the line out, particularly when Kelleher comes on. He's a good player but not the best chucker in.
@Dodge said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
Beirne has been bloody awful on this tour in particular
Yep, and current form will mean nothing if he is in the starting XV. But it is the Irish Lions.
@Catogrande said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@mariner4life Going by his form in the AIs over here, that is a big loss.
he's an incredible player, i am a huge fan of his work.
10 days later
The big lesson of this tour for the ABs is to defend more like the British and Irish and less like the Aussies.
No matter what happens on Saturday I have begun to reflect on this tour and what it means for the future of the Lions. Lots of comments in the Aussie press that the Lions and their fans / media etc had disrespected Aus by suggesting this might be the last tour. Last week's game came close to bursting that bubble but if I think about it, I'm not sure it really did.
Haskell and co are talking about using the Lions brand more in between the 4 year cycles, playing in other countries. The next tour to NZ is the last one currently contracted then its all up for grabs again. As much as it clearly raises huge funds for the hosting nation I think professionalism is gradually undermining the concept of the tour.
So lets assume we tour NZ in 4 years, what then? South Africa would likely deserve a tour and I hope they would put more effort into it than they did in 2009 - obvs last time was hard because of covid. But then Aus again? Lots of talk about the Lions touring France, or even Argentina, although the non tests would be a joke. If they toured France, does it raise as much money? Is it different enough from the 6N? As much as I would love to see Toulouse vs the Lions, would they even want to play and would their players be available? Would the weight of fans travel to France for a tour or would they fly in and out for games?
Then there's talk of building in warm up games against Fiji / Tonga or even the US, etc but i can't see how that would be anything other than a cricket score. There's also talk of a combined SANZAR Panthers side playing against the Lions - potentially across continents including Europe - but that destroys the touring context that clearly the fans who travel love so much - and defy's Jason Leonard's previous point as Chairman of the Lions, that the Lions are first and foremost a touring side to spread the game.
I suspect it will likely carry on as is given the money situation, but i would worry about the Aus tour in 12 years if the seeming drift of the Aussie public away from rugby continues
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?
@Dodge The answer for the British and Irish Lions is simple.
Come to New Zealand every four years!
@sparky said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
The people are amazing and welcoming (apart from on the rugby field).
And half of their fans.
Respectfully, throw Haskell et al suggestion / financially motivated career move in the same fucking bin as Georgia joining the 6N at the expense of the wooden spoon recipient
Just fuck off
It’s like listening to and watching the many shithouse, pathetic remakes of classic films and TV shows starring lacklustre modern actors of various ethnic and sexual orientations
Rugby in Australia is dead!!!!!!!
90,000 in attendance last Saturday would disagree if they weren’t too busy laughing at the twats writing the obituaries
That match was a ball hair from being 1-1 with everything to play for
If Lions teams toured and won every series then maybe, just maybe the argument would hold some weight
They don’t, and it doesn’t
Any BIL who isn’t prepared to tour for no financial payment should fuck off
You should be playing for the Lions and playing against the Lions to cement your name in history
Stop meddling
It’s lasted this long because it works
@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.
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.
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:
