Donal Lenihan: This is no longer what Lions tours are meant to be about
British & Irish Lions' Tadhg Furlong with Ken Owens in a scrum. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan
It’s hard to believe after all the talk about the Lions tour going ahead —be it on neutral territory in Australia, on home turf in Britain and Ireland, or as scheduled in South Africa — that the tourists are already one third of the way through their nine-game fixture list.
The big question now, of course, is how many of the remaining six contests will actually take place and will the test series survive the multiple outbreaks of Covid in the Springbok squad?
As if things weren’t challenging enough ahead of Wednesday’s game against the Sharks, confirmation on Tuesday that the next game against the Blue Bulls on Saturday has been postponed due to a Covid outbreak in the Bulls camp. This is a setback to the tourists. Further news Wednesday that the virus has now also infiltrated the Lions camp has left the tour hanging by a thread.
With one less game to prepare for the test series and a reduction in audition time for many of the players to make a case for inclusion in the Lions test side — not to mention a week without a game to break the monotony of life in a highly restrictive bio-bubble — this tour, if it survives, is heading into extremely choppy waters.
If Warren Gatland thinks he has it bad, what about his new Springbok counterpart Jacques Nienaber. Having finally got off the mark with a first test match in charge against Georgia last Friday night, he has now fallen victim to the virus which must severely compromise his involvement with the squad.
With Friday night’s second encounter against Georgia also cancelled, the Springboks will have had just a single outing together since winning the World Cup over 20 months ago, placing them at a serious disadvantage. All their players are now in isolation and may have to remain there for up to 10 days.
Even prior to the setbacks over the last 48 hours, the tour has failed to really fire. Perhaps it’s the lack of fans at the venues, something we have become accustomed to at this stage of the pandemic but, for me, the entire experience to date has been underwhelming.
If any side is geared towards playing in front of packed out audiences it’s the Lions. With upwards of 30,000 fans originally booked to travel for some portion of the tour, the absence of red jerseys at the venues is sorely missed.
Add to that the tension that normally comes when playing in front of the highly-partisan following traditionally associated with playing against the likes of the Blue Bulls in Pretoria or the Natal Sharks in Durban and this Lions trek was already short on the ingredients that make that experience such a daunting challenge.
Additionally, with 47 players locked up in that Springbok camp, all of South Africa’s top provincial sides are well short of full strength when looking to down the Lions coluors in the games leading to the first test.
On every Lions tour those games not only offer something rare and special for the provincial players to boast they played against the game’s most revered touring side but, more often than not, sparks a performance far greater than the sum of their parts as they seek to create their own piece of history.
That is what touring was all about. It explains why a team like Munster could fail miserably in a warm-up game against London Irish in the weeks prior to facing New Zealand in 1978 but dig deep into their souls to maintain the province’s great tradition of making life as tough as possible against the southern hemispheres greatest sides. The fact that there’s no partisan support to hand to lift the home teams is another factor diluting the traditional mayhem that is part and parcel of Lions tours.
Japan, without an international since losing to South Africa in the quarter-final of the 2019 World Cup, posed a far greater obstacle to the Lions than the Sigma Lions — what an awful name for a traditional powerhouse of South African rugby in Transvaal — did in Johannesburg last Saturday.
The demands of playing at altitude in Ellis Park placed far more stress on the tourists than anything their beleaguered-looking hosts could offer. Defensively, they were completely at sea and brought nothing like the physicality we expect from South African teams.
Winning the opening games contributes hugely to the feelgood factor and, in a very restrictive tour of this nature where the Lions players even have to don gloves to serve themselves their own food in the confines of their team room, all positives are greatly accepted.
That said, only time will tell whether these warm-up games will prove a help or a hindrance in the build-up to the first test, assuming that the test series will actually take place.
At this moment in time, you just can’t take anything for granted.
At least the game against the Sharks somehow survived the mayhem. That must have been a huge relief for Tom Curry, Josh Navidi, and Adam Beard, the only remaining players within the squad who weren’t involved in the opening games and had never played for the Lions before. It also means that all 37 players have now sampled game time on tour and have become fully-fledged 2021 Lions.
With the Sharks short nine regulars, currently locked away with the Springboks squad, being forced to play on neutral territory, 360 miles away from their traditional home at Kings Park, Durban didn't help their cause much. Neither did the fact that, with just eight minutes on the board, the Lions had already sprinted into a 14-point lead.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this Lions performance was the calm assurance they displayed in the face of a calamitous day that saw four of the starting backline having to withdraw hours before kick-off due to the Covid outbreak in the camp which also resulted in having only a single back, Scotland’s Finn Russell, available to sit on the bench.
Despite issues surrounding their scrum and a misfiring line-out maul, the quality of the Lions' passing coupled with their ability to recycle ball with lightening speed resulted in a comfortable 26-0 lead at the break.
A Sharks resurgence of sorts, which coincided with the period when the Lions hit the altitude wall, resulted in a superb offloading try. At last a glimpse of what the South Africans have to offer. If only there was some home support there to inspire even more pressure on the tourists.
Unfortunately for those craving a serious contest to test the Lions and add greater value in the build-up to the test series, that Sharks score just flattered to deceive even if some of their broken field running was spectacular. What a game it might have been had their nine Springboks been available to do battle.
In the face of adversity, the Lions have carried themselves brilliantly over the last few days. This tour continues to present a variety of obstacles at every corner yet the players and management have displayed an ability to cope and just get on with things.
Outside of the flashes of brilliance from the back three in particular and an impressive willingness and ability to offload out of the tackle, that is probably the most impressive trait the tourists have shown to date.
