Loose Pass: B&I Lions tour needs ‘cranking up’ and short memories of All Blacks’ ‘pundit mob’
British and Irish Lions lock James Ryan and an inset of ex-All Blacks scrum-half Justin Marshall.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with Wales’ low ebb, a lack of takeoff in Australia and egg on face in New Zealand…
Nowhere to hide
Not that a tour in Japan is ever now going to be anywhere near as easy as it was 20 years ago, but it is difficult to foresee how Welsh rugby can currently get any lower.
The team Wales lost to on Saturday was one of Eddie Jones’ experimental line-ups, far from a full Cherry Blossom team. The weather may have been brutal, but a team laced with the experience of Toby Faletau and Dewi Lake ought to have found more.
Financially destitute, at the lowest-ever world ranking and on a record losing streak stretching back 18 miserable games and with even the youngsters not threatening much in the way of regeneration in Italy, with rumours of Wales cutting not just one, but two, of its professional teams in order to participate in an Anglo-Welsh league, with no permanent coach yet in place five months after Warren Gatland departed, with only one Lion left in the tour squad… there is no pinprick of light on the horizon in Wales’ longest night.
Nor is there an obvious solution to the problems beyond delivering a resounding win this weekend coming. But the WRU desperately needs to find its consensus solution to the structural issues back home, otherwise the clamour for Georgia getting a shot at playing off for a Six Nations spot will only grow louder and even more justified.
World Rugby rankings: All Blacks close in on Springboks at the top as Wales sink to new low
Not with a bang, but…
It is probably fair to say that, so far anyway, this is not one of those Lions tours that is going to be remembered as a classic. The games have been underwhelming, the selections have been uncontroversial, the looming Test opposition looking disjointed and nervous.
The Aussies promised a warm welcome, but of the good old games where the tourists would be battling through venomous local teams gearing up for a shot at glory, there has been almost nothing, not even with the scattering of Wallabies in the provincial teams. The toughest obstacle the Lions have faced so far was the sodden pitch in Sydney.
This is not to say the rugby has not been fun to watch, but all of the games have had an air of inevitability around them, even in the periods early on when the home sides have taken early leads on the back of their enthusiasm. Of the close scrapes, scraps and scares such as the upset by the Brumbies in 2013, Queensland roughing up the tourists in 2001, or anything remotely of the intensity of Ballymore 1989, there has been nothing.
With the exceptions of perhaps the back row and centres, almost all of the Test team is pretty much nailed on, while the atmospheres have been far from raucous. Column inches in papers back home have been fewer than your correspondent can remember for any Lions tour, while banter even in the Australian press has been notably absent. It may change for the Tests but you’d hope it would be cranking up already.
Any tomato sauce with those words, Mr. Marshall?
“The side the French have bought is clearly underpowered and you’re talking about an average age of 25, and an average number of caps of 9.3, this is a side that has a very little amount of experience. There’s 49 per cent of the players who have no caps at all, so it’s a development team with a few senior players involved.” – Justin Marshall.
“I just think it’s ridiculous that they’re able to bring this, an average of nine caps, it’s disrespectful. You build this sort of series up and they talk about how difficult and how our players want to come down here and then they bring a squad like that.” – Mils Muliaina.
Thing is, not only have France quite clearly got a well of talent far, far deeper than most give them credit for, there are some remarkably short memories among the New Zealand pundit mob.
Back in the days when the All Blacks enjoyed regular unbeaten romps through Europe in November, there would often be a second string side sent out to play Scotland or Italy, perhaps even Wales or Ireland on occasion; indeed, during France’s 12-year losing streak against the All Blacks from 2009 to 2021, the opposition in black was not always the strongest XV available either. Disrespectful? Or simply building the sort of strength in depth below that helps you win World Cups?
On last weekend’s evidence, it would be the latter. And it is about time that New Zealand’s analysts began to look at what is going on a little closer to home; this current All Black generation is looking far from the finished product.