Let’s make a splash
Lions ready to ride out storm in New Zealand tour opener
New Zealand in winter. The best team in the world. The All Blacks on home turf. Tumbling rain and whipping winds. Even the friendly crowds bay for victory. On and off the field, the pressure builds, almost to the point of suffocating you. It is like a jet-black blanket, covering you, weighing on you, stopping your movements and breath. Every newspaper dissects every decision and move you make. The country talks about nothing else. It is rugby, rugby, rugby. It is relentless.
It is the hardest place on the planet to take a rugby team and win. I know how hard this can prove because the last time the British and Irish Lions were in New Zealand, in 2005, I was lucky to be in the touring party.
History has not been kind. We lost 3-0 and our performances have been consigned to the rubbish bin. The tour has been described as a failure. New Zealand were good. In fact, New Zealand were epic, but that does little to change the figures in the win/loss column. That is something we, the touring party, have to live with.
I can shout until the cows come home that the Lions are about more than just winning. I shared many magical moments with some incredible players. I got the chance to train and play with the best in the northern hemisphere and it is something I will never forget. Ask me if the atmosphere of 2005 was worse than in 1997, the Lions tour to South Africa when I went as an uncapped player and we become only the second party to beat the Springboks, and I would have to say, no, it was not. There is little to tell them apart. Is Keith Wood a better friend than Stephen Jones because we won in ’97 and got battered in ’05? Definitely not. But there is something missing, something that leaves a hole.
Ian Mcgeechan talked about it in 1997 before the second Test, when he spoke of a look that winning teams and players give each other. It is knowing. It is impossible to fake.
The Lions of 2017 will, by most measures, be the most professional side ever to set foot on New Zealand soil. But it is not the ability to bank money or bench-press personal bests that will make the difference.
If the Lions want to win, they are going to have to beat the Kiwis at their own game – and do it for six weeks straight. In South Africa and Australia, winning is called the Everest of a player’s career. In New Zealand it is the moon-shot. The quality of their rugby is utterly brutal. On that basis, winning in Wellington in June 2003 with England will be the game I take to my grave.
When the Lions tour South Africa and Australia there are usually a couple of games when they are up against players who would not make a Pro12 or Aviva Premiership starting XV. Not in New Zealand. Every game will be a virtual Test match because the structure of All Black rugby dictates that all their sides are designed to feed into the national set-up. A cohesive vision that unifies the country with a single aim; to create great All Blacks.
As a result, there is a DNA to Kiwi rugby players that means they all understand the game and their role in it. They have a sixth sense, that is coached and taught from an early age, about understanding what may happen on the pitch, about where the ball is likely to end up.
They think, they watch, they wait. They are tough, smart players who have a mission. This is a potent mixture – you never want to face a team who have the mental iron to back up their natural sinews. Throw them together and they play as if their lives depend upon it.
The Lions, by contrast, are a patchwork quilt of diverse talents and styles, national teams and regional squads, defensive systems and attacking patterns. Instead of the All Black brotherhood, the Lions are a multicoloured touring party who have to reinvent their identity every four years.
This is no easy task. As players, your identity is usually defined by your role in a team and your successes, or failures, during your time with your club, region or nation. As you get higher, you spend less time together, have to react more quickly, adapt as seamlessly as possible.
It is no surprise, then, that when you reach the highest accolade in European rugby, the time to acclimatise is ridiculously short. Everything is condensed and forced with the aim of forging the strongest of bonds – that of team-mates.
Today’s professionals know each other better than we did on previous tours, the number of matches they play against each other has increased and somewhat eases the sense of being surrounded by total strangers. Even so, there is a level of unknown chemistry that must happen for the Lions to click and function to the best of their collective abilities.
That is why the 2017 Lions must create their own narrative and history, their own story, and do so quickly.
The clock is ticking for them to find out who their leaders are, discover how far they will go to win, and realise how much the jersey means to them.
There is no place to hide in New Zealand, and twice a week they will need to deal with the simple question: are we winners or losers, tourists or Lions?