Selfish clubs will ruin Lions, warns tour boss
IT SEEMS strange that at the end of a tour which underlined the allure of the British and Irish Lions and its rare ability to bring its united nations to a halt in the name of rugby, the very future of such a beloved sporting institution should be shrouded in fear and uncertainty.
And yet, as the Lions tour manager, John Spencer, a member of the storied Lions party that won a series in New Zealand for the first time in 1971, sat on the top floor of the team’s tower block hotel overlooking Auckland last week, he was forced to talk not of bright days ahead but of radical surgery and doomsday scenarios.
The next three-tour cycle of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand has been agreed with a minimum of eight games, as part of the new global calendar from 2019 announced by World Rugby in March. But the deal was reached without the knowledge of Spencer or Lions chief executive John Feehan.
The fear that has hung over this tour is that there will be increased pressure from clubs, particularly in England’s Premiership, to shorten the length of a Lions tour to five weeks, a schedule that many feel would make the entire concept untenable.
On this tour the Lions had to play their first game, against the New Zealand Provincial Barbarians, only three days after their 26-hour journey from London because of the refusal of clubs to bring their domestic finals forward. Spencer fears the spirit of the organisation could be ripped apart.
Asked if he could see a time when he would advocate that the Lions might have to tour without England players if they were not released in good time by their clubs, who are seen as the most intransigent and grasping opponents to the Lions concept, Spencer nodded.
‘Yes, I can,’ he said. ‘I would dread the day when it became divisive like that. We have in our VIP party a couple of Premiership club owners, David Morgan and Derek Richardson. These guys understand the Lions. I wouldn’t like it to be divisive like that, no.
‘All it needs is a few sensible heads to sit around a table and talk about it and I am sure there are people in the Premiership who understand the Lions and who want it to succeed, just as they want their own countries to succeed.
‘But we have to sit down and talk about it pretty quickly. If a Lions tour were to be shortened to eight games, I wonder whether coaches would want to take on a tour that was virtually impossible to win; whether they would want to put their reputations at stake. Because it’s a big job, a huge undertaking.
‘And you’re also looking into the future, wondering whether players would want to go, knowing it was virtually impossible, too. It’s then whether they would want to go on that sort of tour, rather than now, when they have that self-belief.
‘Would that attitude still stay if the Lions became, not a failure, but became really vulnerable to the politics of the game? Would players still want to do that at the end of a hard season? Would it still have the same ethos?’
Spencer remains unsure whether the plan to force the Lions into truncated tours from 2021 onwards is set in ‘tablets of stone’ but he fears the Lions are being sacrificed to ease what he calls the sport’s ‘global calendar problems’.
‘We have been told that World Rugby have had a meeting, that the Premiership was represented at that meeting in San Francisco,’ Spencer said. ‘And what I want to know is who was representing the Lions? Because John Feehan wasn’t invited and I certainly wasn’t. Who was representing the Lions’ interest when this agreement was made? The answer is I don’t know.’
Because they are essentially an amorphous concept — a concept built on romance, prestige, excellence and four-yearly co-operation — the Lions are particularly vulnerable to the increasingly hard-headed, financial demands of the professional era, spearheaded by English clubs. The result is that the Lions are the first to be squeezed because they have the least power. The reality is that some club owners see them as expendable. And even though players still see representing the Lions as the pinnacle, they, too, are being made to suffer for the privilege.
‘No coach in any of our countries, at any level, would have accepted that starting schedule that we had from the final Saturday of the club season through to our playing the next week,’ said Spencer.
‘It is just madness as far as player welfare is concerned. If you are also using those first few games to prepare for a Test, it is not a proper preparation. We just cannot let that happen on a future Lions tour. It’s a conversation we have to have. But I will be making strong suggestions — perhaps demands, even — that, that doesn’t happen. You know we are putting the players at risk. What would happen if we had a serious injury in the first two matches and guys were tired and not on the ball?
‘How often in rugby do we negotiate on principle and settle on cash? It happens a lot. But I am going to make it very clear that the Lions tour is being eaten up at every corner and this cannot be allowed to happen.
‘I think it is difficult for people to understand the Lions concept until they have been part of the tour. Being around the players and coaches, you guys understand how important it is.
‘Every player is desperate to get on this tour, particularly to New Zealand, where it is the number one sport. To let it fade away, just for political reasons, would be madness to me. It would be suicide.’
It has been reported that the Lions paid Premiership clubs around £470,000 in 2009 to secure agreement for the date of their final to be brought forward to allow a full week of preparation before the tour of South Africa. The same request was rejected before the tour to Australia four years later by both English and Welsh clubs and not even raised before the matches against the All Blacks.
It is hard to fathom why Premiership clubs, in particular, seem unable to appreciate the bigger picture and accept how much the Lions spread interest in the sport beyond its normal reach, bringing new recruits to rugby union and making it the main sporting talking point even in the midst of Wimbledon and a Lord’s Test match.
Spencer is exasperated by the clubs’ attitude, too, but he is determined not to let the viability of the Lions be further eroded by greed without fighting for its survival.
‘We have to sit down and have some serious conversations with clubs and unions, and we have to manage this,’ added Spencer.
‘It is far too valuable to lose it. Surely, once every four years we could be given an extra couple of weeks.
‘Fixtures being arranged midweek at home has happened before. I feel very strongly about it.
‘I’m passionate about the Lions and we need to protect it. I think it is incredibly important; it is the one thing that brings our countries together.’