Good but not quite great reflections on what might have been for British & Irish Lions

Yahoo

2 days ago

From James Toney in Sydney
Lions tours are famously as much about words as deeds, but they also come with a whole lot of hindsight too.
It's the ultimate opinions game, and everyone has got one, but the facts don't lie.
Andy Farrell's team achieved their goal of a Test series win in Australia, but the record books will show it was sandwiched between defeat in the first and final matches of their campaign.
Good? Yes. Great? Not really.
To think, in the build-up to the third Test in Sydney, there were questions about whether the Wallabies, down in sixth in the world rankings, even deserved to host future Lions tours, which Farrell quickly slapped down as 'insulting'.
It doesn't take too many sliding doors moments for this tour to have gone very differently, Joe Schmidt's Australian team paying the price for their tepid first-half show in Brisbane.
Pre-match talk in Sydney might have been about a rare Test clean sweep, but there remains something just a little unconvincing about the latest aspiring 'Invincibles' to fall short of legend status.
But for a dramatic late try at the MCG, with a whiff of controversy about it too, the hosts were just one minute from claiming this series. They were ahead for the vast majority of the 240 minutes played and were edged out by a single point in the cumulative scores across three Tests.
It was the closest aggregate Test score in Lions history, beating the previous six points in 1971 and 1993.
Farrell quickly pivoted from disappointment to pride as he reflected on the last two months of toil and tussle. His players deserve this to be a moment of celebration, but there should be some reflection on the long way home too.
He said there had been no let-up in training after the Lions had partied hard for two days following the series-clinching win in Melbourne. He did concede that, perhaps unconsciously, wrapping things up early might have taken some edge away from the final match.
He also gave very short shrift to the idea the Lions lacked focus in their final engagement, especially when a lightning storm forced players from the pitch early in the second half.
However, there was a marked contrast to the way both teams approached this 40-minute delay as sodden Sydney went from shower to downpour to monsoon, leaving those playing and watching more drenched than if they'd taken a dip in the harbour.
Schmidt admitted his team had discussed how to approach such a break, having looked at the pre-match forecast.
The Lions, in contrast, didn't know the rules, a strike within close range of the stadium forcing the players off the field for a mandatory 30 minutes followed by a ten-minute warm-up.
"That's rubbish," was Farrell's two-word response to enquiries that the Lions appeared to switch off when forced from the field.
Cameras showed Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii meditating in the Wallabies' rooms while Nic Frost studied laptop footage with coach Geoff Parling.
In contrast, the Lions chilled on beanbags while Finn Russell scrolled through his phone. TV footage from the dressing room suddenly cut when assistant coach David Nucifora threw a towel over the prying camera.
When allowed back on the pitch, the Wallabies were out several minutes ahead of their rivals, hitting tackle bags with focus.
They flew out of the blocks at the third time of asking, winning two Lions line-outs and forcing errors with flair and stubbornness. Teeming rain was no time for champagne rugby; this match required some mongrel.
The Wallabies are not the kind of team to become a footnote in someone else's story, and when Max Jorgensen intercepted to open up the lead to 13 points, it was a long way back in such difficult, attritional conditions.
Winning three Tests on the spin is not meant to be easy — the Lions haven't done it since 1974 and they've not even had the chance to do it for 28 years.
It was clear in Sydney that one team wanted to win, and one team desperately needed to win — and that was the key difference.
However, Farrell hasn't done too much wrong on this tour. Maro Itoje has been a captain from central casting and has stitched together players from four rival nations flawlessly.
Tom Curry and Tadhg Beirne — Farrell's two most debated selections — rewarded their coach by pushing each other very close to the player of the series prize, won by the latter just ahead of the former.
But the Lions coach resisted the temptation to freshen up his team for their last stand, and they looked weary, edged out on every key metric, soundly beaten in scrum, breakdown and line-out.
Sport is not really about marginal gains but marginal calls, and this one missed the mark.
In contrast, Schmidt's slew of changes — some enforced but some tactical — all paid dividends.
'I don't know if we ran out of gas. Everything's in hindsight, isn't it?" said Farrell.
However, he is surely the frontrunner to coach in four years when the Lions travel to New Zealand for what will always be the ultimate test of this cherished sporting anachronism.
He gets the Lions, and there is simply no other coach in the reckoning, if he wants it again.
"Everyone knows what I think about this concept. I suppose that says it all. I absolutely love everything the Lions is about," he added.
"I've loved every single minute of it, but that's a long time off, isn't it? I've thoroughly enjoyed the last eight weeks. There's always ups and downs, but the inner circle is a special place to be.
"Read into that what you want, but four years is a long time between drinks."
That's a classic non-denial denial and certainly not a no.
There is no tomorrow for the Lions, but Australia look to South Africa for the forthcoming Rugby Championship with just a smidgen more confidence.
Schmidt may have lost the series, but he has accomplished one of the basic ambitions he had when he succeeded Eddie Jones after the Wallabies' disastrous World Cup campaign.
He hands on to Les Kiss later this year — who will lead Australia in their home World Cup in 2027 — with some optimism that they at least won't be embarrassed, an admittedly low bar for a proud sporting nation.
Australian sports teams are honed on their fighting spirit, and the Wallabies were best when they took their visitors to their own 'hurt arena'.
What could have been if the influential Will Skelton hadn't missed out in Brisbane; there was a big difference between the scorelines when the bruising brute was on the pitch and off it.
However, rugby union in Australia remains a sport in crisis, squeezed out by the dominant AFL and league codes who suck the oxygen from sporting debate in their winter months.
The next two years might be the last chance to resuscitate it, otherwise perhaps the Lions — whose fans are clamouring for matches with France and Argentina — may not be back so quickly.