2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia

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!

1. The country is the most beautiful in the world.
2. The people are amazing and welcoming (apart from on the rugby field).
3. The provincial sides are always going to be the most fierce and competitive.
4. Even though the Springboks have won their last two Lions series and the last two World Cup, the All Blacks are the bigger brand in Britain and Ireland. I get the sense that we are the side most British and Irish rugby fans want to beat and who they measure themselves against.
5. After borrowing so many Kiwis for the squad this time, the Lions owe the NZ economy a bit of love.

@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.

@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.