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Malachy Clerkin: Cannot wait for Lions tour, but why does rugby always feel this need for overblown nonsense?
It was well into the wee hours on Sunday night and the final round of the
US Open
had gone medieval. The best golfers in the world were falling into sinkholes all over Oakmont, drowning in grass, dissolving in rain.
It was like watching live action Pac-Man, as one of the most difficult courses in the world chomped them all to crumbs. A snuff movie in soft spikes.
But then, through the gloom,
Sky
came back from an ad break and from the opening seconds of the soundtrack you feared the worst.
It was the light plinking guitar of The Mighty Rio Grande by This Will Destroy You, a portentously named instrumental band from Texas. You know it better as the music from the Moneyball movie.
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The music played over footage of mysterious footsteps in the shadows. Smoke swirling around eight headless mannequins decked in red. A silhouetted figure stood before the camera, his head bowed, his face obscured. 'Finally, it's time,' growled Scottish actor
Gerard Butler
, laying the accent on thicker than a cranachan layer. 'It's Lions o'clock...'
Ah, no. Please no. Not this stuff. Not again.
Alas, yes, indeed, it is time for this stuff again.
Regular as clockwork, like a naff Halley's Comet, the rugby industrial complex has started picking up speed. The
Lions
series is upon us, which means that rugby's comically overblown way of selling itself is cranking into gear. Even in the dead of night when we're watching the golf. Especially in the dead of night when we're watching golf.
Gerard Butler is seen during the pre-2023 World Cup warm-up rugby union match between Scotland and Georgia at Murrayfield. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/Getty
'Gggggrraaaaggggghhhh,' Butler offered, scratching at the back of his head. 'Goosebumps,' he said, in case we thought he was selling dandruff shampoo. 'It's ... it's Barry,' he stuttered over footage of Barry John in 1971, as though he himself couldn't believe he was ploughing through this nonsense.
On and on, through clips of old tours, old tests, old fights. For some reason, footage of Daniel Craig popped up at one stage, 007 visiting the Lions dressingroom after the third test in 2013. 'Actors, eh?' Butler winked, conveying some class of inside joke. Your guess is as good as anyone else's.
All of it was mere preamble to the final 20 seconds, whereupon Butler rose himself to his full height and unleashed various lines from Shakespeare's Henry V. Part of the once-more-unto-the-breach speech repurposed and Tik-Tokified for the digital generation.
'Stiffen the sinews. Summon up the blood! Show us the mettle of your pasture, boys [he was shouting by now], for we doubt it not. And if it be a sin to covet honour, be the most offending souls alive [he was whispering by now].'
Look. I can't wait to watch the Lions. You can't wait to watch the Lions. In a world where everything has had its edges planed and its knobbly bits lopped off, the continued existence of the Lions is a miracle. Nobody sitting down today with a blank piece of paper and the sport of rugby union to plan from scratch would dare to dream it up. It's too far-fetched. It makes no sense.
The Lions tour is one of the only bankable entities in a sport that struggles for mass appeal. Photograph: Billy Stickland/INPHO
Yet, somehow, one of the maddest and best ideas from rugby's amateur days has been preserved. Not just that, it has thrived. It has survived the Covid nadir, it has endured endlessly lengthening seasons, it has kept on as one of the only bankable entities in a sport that struggles for mass appeal. It's here and it's magnificent, one of the absolute highlights of the sporting year.
So why can't rugby let us enjoy it for what it is? It's just a sport, lads. Indeed, it's one of the purest forms of any sport, anywhere. Nothing about it matters except the matches and the results. Never mind your ersatz Agincourt cosplaying – sell that.
A Lions tour is like the
Ryder Cup
– you're immersed in it, completely and faithfully, for every last second that it's on. And when it's over, it's gone until the next time and you couldn't care less. Apart from the players and the staff involved, nobody's day is made or ruined by the result. It is its own thing, a glorious mayfly, here and gone in a finger snap.
We've spent more than 30 years watching Sky sell sport and other events in every overhyped, overblown way imaginable. Photograph: Billy Stickland/INPHO
And that's a good thing. That's what gives the Lions its own unique energy and momentum. The 40,000 or so who will go to Australia for it over the coming weeks are all chasing that once-in-a-lifetime buzz, that feeling of being right there among it when the planets align.
There's a lot of mythmaking around the Lions and there's no harm in people wanting to attach themselves to it. Plenty are going for a right good jolly-up – and there's nothing wrong with that either.
All of which raises the question: who is that Sky ad for? And why do they only ever use this kind of guff to sell rugby? We've spent more than 30 years watching them sell football in every overhyped, overblown way imaginable. Other sports and events too – the revitalised darts is a triumph of hype and publicity, the aforementioned Ryder Cup will be undeniable come September. And yet they wouldn't be caught dead trying to evoke a 400-year-old play based on a 600-year-old battle to gin up publicity for those sports.
So why rugby? It's not just Sky, either. Plenty of pre-Six Nations montages on RTÉ and BBC come infused with this carry-on as well. It's as though somebody somewhere decided that rugby can only be sold to lizard-brained Game of Thrones acolytes, waiting for the mist to clear the mountains so a ball can be thrown into a lineout.
Of course, there was a more immediate – and far duller – answer on Sunday night. As soon as Butler finished caterwauling, the golf commentator Andrew Coltart dutifully informed viewers that How to Train Your Dragon, starring Butler, is in cinemas now. Just happened to have been released two days earlier, in fact.
If it be a sin to covet bums on seats at your nearest Odeon...
