Geoff Parling: What rugby can learn from the British and Irish Lions as ‘golden opportunity’ awaits

Geoff Parling wants rugby union to learn from the British and Irish Lions – the team Australia has hired him to beat.

The former England lock is the lineout coach for Joe Schmidt’s Wallabies, who launch their Rugby Championship campaign against South Africa in Brisbane on Saturday.

First to play for and coach against the British and Irish Lions

10 months on from their humiliating pool exit from the Rugby World Cup, Australia play the world champions with no time to waste if they are to mount any sort of challenge to the Lions next summer.

“My job is to help build a squad and performance that can win that Test series,” says Parling, set to become the first man to play for, and coach against, the British and Irish Lions in a Test series.

“It’s maybe an unusual scenario but we are all professionals. My job is to try and beat them. That’s what I’m fully trying to do.”

Rewind 11 years and Parling’s job was to beat Australia with the Lions. It came at the cost of missing the birth of his first child – the midwife unplugging the Skype feed into the delivery suite at the crucial moment.

That apart he found the tour experience a joy, captaining the midweek team and appearing in all three Tests, the second and third from the start following injury to Paul O’Connell.

Above all, Parling remembers the sense of fun, a feel-good factor he believes modern rugby has lost and would be better for rediscovering.

“In 2013 I was struck by the professionalism of the Lions combined with an ‘amateur’ feel of the tour, if that makes sense,” he says.

“Playing midweek games against blokes you’ll probably never play against again. Swapping shirts at the end, having a beer in the changing room, a bit of craic. Then turning up the next day for training and going again.

“I loved it all and I do think now as coaches, players, and performance staff, we sometimes neglect slightly the camaraderie and feel of the game.

“How many teams after a Premiership game go into each other’s changing rooms and share a beer before the away team gets on the bus? It basically never happens.

“That’s what made the game great. I know there’s next week’s performance to think about, of course there is. I just think there’s that moment after a game where you need to take it in for an hour or so. And that’s what you get on a Lions tour.”

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Giving his all to the Wallabies

Parling is no outlier on this. Anyone touched by the Lions experience tends to become smitten, witness the claim by organisers that DOUBLE the number that made the official trip in 2013 have already booked for 2025.

It’s just that this time the son of Stockton-on-Tees is in the opposition changing room, father of kids already taking a shine to the green and gold despite dad “sort of educating them to cheer on both” countries he now considers home.

“Before I came on this call we were watching the Olympics,” says the 40-year old. “My kids were supporting Australia. It’s the way it is now. Definitely different.”

A year ago was slightly different. England played Australia in the semi-finals of the women’s football World Cup and Parling invited the soccer team that his daughter plays in and he coaches to his Melbourne home to watch the game.

“There were 12 10-year-old girls around all supporting the Matildas,” he recalls. “And my boy was there with his England strip on supporting England. It was interesting.”

Steve Borthwick would sympathise. When England’s head coach took charge over from Eddie Jones he regaled us with a memory of his son Hunter, nine years old at the time.

“Hunter came running towards me carrying a ball in his hand,” he said. “I thought: ‘He’s going to give me this great hug, it’s going to be a heartwarming moment’.

“Instead he ran straight past me, dived on the floor on the far side of the living room and said: ‘I just scored the winning try, Daddy’.

“Brilliant. One problem was I missed out on my hug. The other was he was wearing a Wallabies shirt! His [Australian] mother’s to blame for that.”

Given he is now a passport holder and citizen of Australia, Parling has absolutely no issue with giving his all for the land Down Under. Indeed, the process has already begun.

In three Tests since rejoining the national squad for the first time since a short spell working alongside Dave Rennie, the Wallabies have beaten Wales, twice, and Georgia.

He is not about to get carried away. “We’re under no illusions that we’re going to have to play a lot better than we did in our first three games to make a mark on this Rugby Championship.”

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Australia’s golden opportunity

Nonetheless, the mood in Oz has gone from despair to cautious optimism.

Suncorp Stadium, the 52,500-seat stage for Saturday’s Springboks visit, has sold out for a rugby match for the first time since Parling’s Lions were in town all those years ago.

“We kept it pretty basic those first few weeks,” Parling continues. “Working pretty hard at the basics Joe and the coaching group believed would win games.”

“I think we had 10 debutants in those three games and for them all to win on debut is great for the players. But we are very realistic that, Jeez, we have to do things a lot better.”

A widely held view is that the next 12 months are vital for the future of Australian rugby with the Lions incoming followed by a home World Cup in 2027.

“I don’t think it’s quite make-or-break,” says Parling. “I’ve heard it described as the Golden Decade coming up – Lions tour, men’s World Cup, women’s World Cup – I prefer to see it as a golden opportunity.

“Obviously the opportunity needs to be taken, money needs to be spent in the right way. The public wants winners because there are so many sports on offer.

“For union it’s not maybe as a dramatic as make or break, but let’s not shy away from the fact it’s an important few years, yeah.”

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