@Catogrande said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Mr-Fish said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Catogrande said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Mr-Fish said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@antipodean said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Dodge said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
Saw a tweet yesterday that suggested that this Lions squad have been very happy clappy, very friendly etc and that Farrell brought some steel. I started to think about it and I couldn't think of a single player on tour who fits the Martin Johnson / Alan Wyn Jones mould. There might just be something in it.
What steel is required? They've given out two absolute canings with no discernible reason this weekend against the Tahs will be any different.
Farrell brings nothing but an astonishing ability to not be held to account for his bullshit tackling technique. A technique that would've ended his career if other players were permitted to do the same to him with impunity.
That's probably exactly why steel is required. Don't think the Super warm-ups will be of much concern to Andy Farrell. The Tests (and probably the ANZAC game) will be much tougher and Farrell might be worried his men are going in with too low expectations of their opposition.
The lack (so far) of credible opposition is making this Lions tour a little less attractive, certainly currently. I'm not sure of Schmidt's intransigence in not releasing Wallabies. is it to protect depth? Is it to have an undercooked Lions team (cue conspiracy theories)? All I do know is that for the tour to have real traction the games outside tests must have some form of jeopardy attaching to them. Otherwise we may as well can them and just play the tests. Have a few warm up games in the UK. Fly over for three weeks, do the test series and then jump on the plane home. It would put a few more £££s in the home unions' coffers and cut down on time away from home.
A tour should be a tour.
That wasn't really the case in 2021, 2013, 2009, 2005 2001 etc...
2017 is probably the one time that the club games were all largely competitive.
There have always been some not very competitive matches, but usually there have at least been some of the non-test games that were close or even losses for the BILs.
2001 we lost to Australia A and squeaked home with a last gasp try and conversion against the Brumbies
2005 we lost to the Maori and had close games v Southland and Auckland. From memory the games against Otago and Wellington were pretty competitive with the BILs pulling away in the late stages.
2009 we drew v the Emerging Springboks and had close games v Western Province, Royal XV and Cheetahs.
2013 Very close v the Brumbies, competitive v Queensland and only the Farce and Combined Country being blow outs.
2017 A draw against the Hurricanes and very close against NZ Provincial Barbarians, Blues and Crusaders and pretty close v the Maori.
2019 I don't think is a good yardstick due to the whole covid thing fucking things up but we still managed to lose v SA A.
Now I get that the depth in Aussie is not the same as SA or NZ but so far on this tour we've been playing the Super sides minus most of their classier players. not so much a who's who of a team more of a who's that team. If that continues for the whole tour it would be a shame and a good advert for those that say Lions tours are an anachronism and should be shelved.
I think the Force and Reds games were both pretty competitive for 40 minutes.
Yes, there have been a couple of closer games on most tours in the past, but that's looking at all the games throughout, not just the opening two. I suspect the ANZAC game will be fairly competitive, and playing the Brumbies in Canberra will likely be a relatively close affair too thanks to the conditions. Who knows about the Pacific-First Nations team.
Factor in that Australia are weaker than usual and the Lions are arguably stronger than usual (Ireland, England, Scotland all at pretty good points in their trajectories), and it's understandable if this particular tour has slightly less competitive warm-up matches - but I don't think there's a stark difference between this tour and most of the previous ones in the pro era (bar 2017, which is very much an outlier).
