The First Test
In the 55 years or so I have been watching and reporting on sport there is one constant. When a British sportsman or team is well beaten by overseas opposition , in the navel gazing afterwards the quality of that opposition is understated. I first appreciated this when boxer John H Stracey of whom we had high hopes as a champion was well beaten by Carlos Palomino. Then in 1973 England were well beaten by Poland in World Cup qualifiers. Poland ? Who are they ? They have a clown as goalkeeper reverberated Brian Clough . They finished third in the 1974 World Cup . The sporting press have to lot to blame for creating a gung ho feeling pre tournament , battle and war imagery of ” fighting in the trenches” abounds.
Not following rugby as devotedly as some I read the dedicated Telegraph test supplement and the main sports section prior to the game. In the special supplement Will Greenwood wrote that New Zealand fans were nervous , that the tourists have an awesome tight five and in the main edition a Lions victory was predicted by such luminaries as Sir Ian McGeechan . I spoke to Pargie to ask him where his tenner was going. He replied on a 13+ points victory to the All Blacks as predicted by the more pragmatic Racing Post. They stressed that the All Blacks were unbenaten at home in a test match since 2009 and at Eden Park since 1994. I thought after a shay start they had much the better all round players in terms of pace and technique , particularly their offloading , and but for the line outs and the odd mazy run the Lions were very much second best. Put another way , only Jonathan Davies would make the All Black side. I was particularly impressed by Brodie Retallack a powerful skilful forward in the best traditions of Colin Meads. He went crashing through the LIons defence like a charging rhino.
Two further points. I wrote of Royal Ascot as an anachronism . So are the Lions . Now under pressure from the clubs I do hope these British Isles tourists survive. There is no geographical unity especially as Eire is part of the EU and the rest of the Britain will not be and even the name is redolent of Empire but so what ? Secondly any forensic pulling apart of rugby as systemically happens in football should not disguise the fact that British sport at team and inmdiviual level is in rude health. Andy Murray, Lewis Hamilton, Chris Froome, Rory Mcilroy and Joe Root are all at the uppermost echelons of their sport . We trouser up medals at Olympiad in fashion I have never seen as i am old enough to recall 4 golds at Tokyo.
So Head Coach Warren Gatland might aspire to greater physicality, Jonny Sexton may return, Sam Warburton is needed to counter the power of Retallack , the Lions may introduce a whole new game plan or mix and mend. I predict it will not make any dfference. The All Blacks are simply better.
