Looking over social media during the Hurricanes game a new term emerged before my eyes ‘geography six’. Now if this had arrived before then and somehow I had missed it then I do apologise for my tardiness. However regardless of the timing of the arrival, you know that something has caused a good deal of commotion if it’s give a nickname. Normally the word ‘gate’ springs on the end - either in jest or for a more serious reason - however in this case the name was more literal.
When Warren Gatland called up six new members into the British & Irish Lions squad I made no secret of the fact that it didn’t sit well with me. My viewpoint at the time when the call-ups were made, and that remains, is that the British & Irish Lions is the pinnacle of a rugby players’ career. The best of the best are selected to represent them and over the years there have been many excellent internationals that haven’t had the honour of wearing the red jersey. Yet here we were in a situation where some individuals that weren’t in the original conversion for selection were called into the squad. While others, that narrowly missed out remained with national sides in various other parts of the world.
Naming names at this point in time isn’t going to benefit anyone here however we are all well enough informed to understand the particulars of the situation that arrived. The perspective that I held on this remains, even with the prospective of limited game time those unlucky to miss out on selection should have been called in first. Yes, jet lag is a real part of flying across the world but surely other national coaches would have been more than happy to release players earlier to negate that factor. Summarising my opinion on that area, as I did at the time on social media, I believe that geography shouldn’t have ever been a factor in the decision making process to be called up into the British & Irish Lions squad.
Following Tuesday’s mid-week game against the Hurricanes a new point arose - not just the name ‘geography six’ - it was the fact that they remained on the bench watching on despite the team on the park looking to be flagging energy wise. Stuart Farmer - the official statistician for the Six Nations, British & Irish Lions, Premiership, PRO12, ESPN Scrum and Leicester Tigers - highlighted that the last time that a front row trio were on the park for a full match was last November between USA and Tonga and since it’s happened just twice in the Japanese Top League!
The post-match rationale was that the controversy surrounding the call-ups had made the head coach decide to ‘try and get through the game with as many of the starting XV as we could’. Now following my earlier point about the selections you’d think that I’d be in agreement with this. However as the head coach had already made the earlier decision surely it was a double blow on the Lions to not put fresh legs on the field in order to win that mid-week game? Clearly my own first choice would have been to call-up the front runners amongst those that weren’t originally selected and to have unleashed them. But, when that wasn’t done then having players bench-warming wasn’t all that great for them or for the Lions squad as a whole when a statement-making victory may have provided a greater boost leading into the crucial second Test.
Ultimately the Lions head coach has always made it clear that the Tests are what counts, they are the be all and end all and everything is done with them in mind. However this part of the tour- the additional call-ups and everything surrounding them - just didn’t sit comfortably with me. Of course I’ve no idea how it was received inside the camp and ultimately it’s the opinions of the six individuals that matters most.
The long and the short of this is that I don’t think that I’ll ever fully get my head around it without having been in New Zealand and been much closer to the camp. Instead it’s time to park this and move all of our focus to the second Test. There’s a series to level and plenty to discuss following the two squad announcements and the back drop that the opening Test has provided.
