Loose Pass

Editor

This week we will be mostly concerning ourselves with Garry Ringrose, Scottish rugby, Dylan Hartley and ‘Warrenball’.

41 flavours of vanilla

Just as we were beginning to make peace with Warren Gatland’s choices, along comes Garry Ringrose and his uncanny impression of Brian O’Driscoll, circa June 30, 2001.

The young Irishman’s fabulous try against Clermont on Sunday – all 60 metres of it – was a thing of rare beauty.

Like BOD’s effort for the Lions against Australia, it failed to win the day, but that’s exactly where its true poignancy lies. Against superior sides, only moments of sheer magic will do.

The Lions squad that will do battle in New Zealand is a good one. Just about everyone is agreed on that – even New Zealanders. It’s muscular, experienced, athletic and deep. But where’s the magic?

We’ve been so distracted by the inexplicable omission of Joe Launchbury to notice the real problem: the Lions are very long on artisans and woefully short of artists. There’s lots of old hats but no rabbits.

We have Ben Te’o over Ringrose, Jared Payne over Simon Zebo, Dan Biggar over Finn Russell – to name but three.

We’re not saying that Gatland strolled into Baskin-Robbins and ordered 41 tubs of vanilla, but there’s precious little tutti-frutti on offer.

Yes, the likes of Stuart Hogg, Jack Nowell, Elliot Daly, Anthony Watson and Liam Williams are all capable of conjuring up moments of magic, but the fuse must be lit by their inside men, and we’re struggling to pin-point the fire-starters outside the back three.

If the Lions really want to beat the All Blacks, they need to chance their arm.

Look back through the annals and just marvel at New Zealand’s record. They average about one defeat per season and haven’t lost a game at home since 2009.

They are very rarely outplayed, only taken by surprise.

Yet faced with having to beat them at home at least twice in the space of three week, the Lions have selected the least surprising squad in rugby history.

It has ‘Warrenball’ written all over it. Gatland admitted as much, pointing out the primacy of his tight five, his muscular midfield and his array of goal-kickers.

The plan, it seems, is to bully the All Blacks up front and take advantage of Beauden Barrett’s apparent waywardness off the kicking tee.

Good luck with that, Gats! But Lions fans should stay positive. We live in the age of mind-boggling upsets.

Plus there’s plenty of rugby to be played between now and the first Test. Given the nature of modern rugby – and the brutal tour schedule mapped out by the money-hungry administrators of New Zealand Rugby – those that stand the best chance of making the Test side are probably those currently deemed surplus to requirements.

Ringrose might yet be the man; the All Blacks might yet be taken by surprise.

Scotched

Scottish teeth have been gnashing over their Lions snub. It’s the latest snub in a long line of snubs, but this one feels particularly harsh considering Scotland’s recent wins over Wales and Ireland, not to mention Glasgow’s recent rise to something approaching greatness.
Stuart Hogg and Tommy Seymour are the only Scottish representatives on tour.

This means they are outnumbered even by overseas players who qualified under the three-year residency rule. Ouch.

Were the Scots cheated? By injury, certainly. Greig Laidlaw, Huw Jones and possibly WP Nel would have been in the mix had they not been under doctor’s orders.

Elsewhere, it was style that did them in, with the likes of Finn Russell, Hamish Watson and the Gray brothers perhaps unable to met the bench-pressing demands of ‘Warrenball’.

But Scottish fans should desist from these calls for future quotas – that’s the road to ruin. Just look at South Africa. If they really need someone to blame, they should look within.

Warren Gatland wanted Gregor Townsend by his side, but the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) blocked the proposed coaching appointment. This denied Scotland a voice on selection.

Worse, it sealed off the Lions from one of Europe’s most forward-thinking rugby brains, housed in the head of a Lions series winner, to boot!

Imagine what Townsend could have brought to the Lions’ table; imagine what he could have taken back to Scotland’s! Thanks to the SRU, that’s all we can do: imagine.

Murrayfield has Olympian form when it comes to pulling in the opposite direction to the rest of the Home Unions. It’s time for them to learn that it’s merely an exercise in self-harm.

Hats off to Hartley

Regular readers of this column will have clocked that we’re not the biggest fan of Dylan Hartley. Fine player though he is, at times he appears to lack the requisite forbearance for the high office of international leadership.

Buying it? Okay, Loose Pass thinks he’s a thug.

But the England captain leapt countless rungs up our ladder of estimation with a single tweet sent out in the wake of his shock omission from the Lions squad. Well, not so much the single tweet as a single word contained therein: “Firgun.”

It’s a Hebrew term meaning a genuine, unselfish delight or pride in the accomplishment of someone else, given fairly and without jealousy.

We’re not going to pretend we didn’t have to look it up, and we’re slightly staggered that we’ve existed so long without it. Here is a single word that underpins much of what is great about our game.

Classy work, Dylan. We had you all wrong. We promise to lavish firgun on all your future achievements.

Loose Pass is compiled by Planet Rugby editor Andy Jackson

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