Should Australia get the Lions back in 12 years' time? I don't know

Times

3 days ago

In his end-of-tour briefing on Sunday, Ben Calveley, the British & Irish Lions chief executive, confirmed a nuggety piece of news: that the Lions would definitely be returning to Australia.
To be up front to readers here, Calveley is the sort of CEO who knows how to say what sounds right at the time. Here we are in Sydney, the day after the Wallabies had beaten his Lions in the third Test; he was hardly going to declare: 'That's it, we're done here for good.'
However, also note that what he would not confirm was the timing: he would not say that the Lions would definitely be back here in 12 years' time, though he did say he expected it. And he wouldn't confirm that a return to Australia would come with a rubber-stamping of the same kind of pre-Test schedule of matches which was so flat and uncompetitive here.
That is all for the future, but there is little that could have protected that future more than the Wallabies' victory on Saturday. You could, if you wished, dismiss it as just a dead-rubber win. However, here in Sydney, it felt more like a political statement of intent, a national uprising almost.
You know: you write us off at your peril.
And OK, acknowledged, we did. I did. But how wonderful to be proven wrong.
Thus has it been a peculiar Lions experience this time. It has been peculiar to be hoping so fervently for the Wallabies to provide a real challenge for the Lions. It has been peculiar to have travelled around the Test-match cities while the question has not just been: would the Lions win 3-0? But, also: what kind of a future does rugby union have in Australia?
At some points, this conversation has come over as disrespectful to our Aussie hosts. If so, then apologies. It was never intended that way. It was more a case of missing the way we wanted Aussie rugby to be.
That sentiment doesn't translate remotely into the sport where two nations on differing sides of the planet have their greatest rivalry. In the Ashes cricket, there is little to be enjoyed more, for either side, than a 5-0 victory and the pleasure of rubbing opposition noses in the sand. In contrast, a 3-0 away win for the Lions would have felt historical but also damaging.
Before the second Test in Melbourne, Tim Horan, the Wallaby great and now a broadcaster, said that it was Australia's most important game for a decade because there was 'so much at stake'.
That's pretty high stakes, then. It felt like the Wallabies were playing for the right to remain relevant.
And then, out of nowhere, it seemed, came Will Skelton and the most almighty repudiation. It is extraordinary in a 15-man team game to see one single athlete make so much impact. A statement performance in Melbourne was followed by another in Sydney.
They gave the player-of-the-series award to Tadhg Beirne and yes, he played all three Tests, which Skelton didn't, and he was on the series-winning side, which Skelton obviously wasn't too. Yet no one influenced this series like Skelton. The narrative changed when he joined the fray. It was, literally, a giant performance.
He also dragged team-mates with him. It gave them the scent of self-belief. It actually made the series.
Here's another thing I read wrong. I had bought it completely when the Lions pledged their hunger for the 3-0 red-wash. Having witnessed the devastation experienced by the Wallabies when they were denied at the death in Melbourne, I found the psychology of the Lions' hunger to complete the set in Sydney far more convincing than the idea that the Wallabies were somehow going to haul themselves off the floor for a dead rubber. Yet they were so impressive.
This all requires context too. Earlier in the week, I had a coffee with (the great) John Eales (yes, OK, massive name drop) and he was talking about the threat that Aussie rules and rugby league, the two big sports here, present to rugby union. 'I don't think,' he said, 'that a lot of people have the understanding of how much of a battle it is.'
That battle is something that we have come face to face with on this tour. Yet despite struggling for player numbers and media prominence, Australia produced a team that started with one shocking half against the Lions, then almost drew level with them and finally bettered them.
The odds of that turnaround were long in the extreme yet, led by Skelton, they came thundering back. What a comeback, what character.
Afterwards, they were thrilled. Of course they were. The talk was all of how they were a young side building. 'There was an unbelievable amount of belief built today on the back of last week and in adversity really standing up,' Nic White, the veteran No9 who will soon be quitting to leave them to it, said. 'They're building towards 2027 and you can see the bones of a really good side there.'
These sentiments were reflected in the Aussie media. 'Welcome back, Australia!' shouted one headline, and then this from Peter FitzSimons, the former Wallaby lock and now an influential journalist: 'The Wallabies' magnificent win proves they're back.'
'One hell of a team,' were the post-match words of Andy Farrell who then shared his conversation with Joe Schmidt, the Wallabies coach, on the pitch afterwards. 'I said to Joe: 'I think that special things are going to happen for this team over the next 18 months, and when the World Cup comes around, they will be a force to be reckoned with.' '
Now always beware the compliments of a winning coach, even a winning coach who has just lost. Farrell also knows how to say what sounds right at the time.
The biggest concern for the Wallabies is their depth. That's just unavoidable when your playing pool is small. Take out Skelton and do they then revert from the Sydney Wallabies to the Brisbane ones? We are going to learn a lot more about them in coming weeks in The Rugby Championship. I hope we learn that the credit and self-belief earned against the Lions are not brief flickers but part of a trajectory, a route to better things.
Does that mean they should get the Lions back in 12 years' time? I don't know; the rugby landscape is changing and it is impossible to know how it will look in Australia in 2037. It seems foolish to make promises 12 years out. But I hope the Wallabies' progress means that we want to come back here, that the quality of their rugby makes an unmistakable case for the Lions' return, not because it is the right thing to say.
A couple of pictures, here, complete the story of Kevin Hurley, the Lions fan whose friends have now completed their mission of having his ashes scattered on the playing fields of the three Test venues, in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
You can read the full story of Kevin here. He was the 55-year-old Cardiff man who had lived in Sydney for 27 years and had been so looking forward to this Lions tour that he lovingly arranged every detail of the trip for his five Welsh friends who would be joining him.
But 'Hurlo', as he was known, died from a heart attack in December last year. His friends then considered cancelling the trip; they opted instead to follow it through, but to bring him with them. Thus have his ashes travelled around Australia with them.
Their challenge was to scatter them on the three Test-match pitches. They weren't sure how it would happen, but here is how it played out. In Brisbane, post-match, they literally waited in the Suncorp Stadium until most people had gone, then innocently wandered down to pitchside and, when security weren't looking, leant over the perimeter hoardings and tipped some of Hurlo on to the grass.
In Melbourne, they got lucky. They were in hospitality at the MCG where a raffle was drawn; the winner plus a friend would get to go down to pitchside to watch the teams in their pre-match warm-up. When the winner was drawn, Jon Powell, one of the five, quickly explained the story to him and asked: 'Can I be your guest?'
As if it was possible to say no! So it was Powell who left another part of Hurlo on the MCG.
Finally on to the Accor Stadium in Sydney. Here Hurlo actually made it into the Lions changing room before the last of him was scattered on the pitch. His friends had worked their contacts here and they knew Geoff Davies, the Lions doctor, who had been a Cardiff GP.
Thus, pictured here is Davies with the urn. Davies took Hurlo into the changing room pre-match and, after the game had ended, he then emptied the urn onto the grass outside.
'That,' said Gareth Simmonds, one of the Hurley five, 'is the end of the chapter.' Mission complete.