Two British Lions Tests in Perth part of the deal as Australia offers to host Covid-hit tour

Perth could host two Tests between the British and Irish Lions and the Springboks if Australia’s bailout offer is accepted.

The British and Irish Lions could play their series against South Africa in Australia

Perth almost certainly would host two of the three Tests between the British and Irish Lions and the Springboks if the two international sides accept Australia’s offer to stage this year’s planned but COVID-hit Lions tour to South Africa.

Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan told The Australian on Sunday he had contacted the South African Rugby Union’s chief executive Jurie Roux about a fortnight ago to offer Australia as a viable alternative to host the tour, which is in grave danger of being cancelled because of the global pandemic.

The story was broken by Stephen Jones in the Sunday Times.

McLennan said that if the offer was accepted it would make sense to stage two of the three Lions Tests in Perth to take advantage of the huge number of South African ex-pats living there. “Perth would be a natural, you would think that,” McLennan said. “But we would hope to stage one Test on the east coast.”

Perth’s new Optus Stadium, which hosted the record Wallabies win over New Zealand in 2019, is regarded as state of the art and provides the capacity – around 60,000 – to accommodate the fans who traditionally follow Lions tours in great numbers. “I don’t see why they would not sell out the ground,” McLennan said.

The tour would also provide an excellent opportunity for Australia’s Super Rugby teams – most especially the Perth-based Western Force – to play either the Lions or the Springboks in warm-up matches.

WA has just entered a five-day lockdown but by the Australian winter, there is no reason why one of the warm-up games would not be against either an Anzac side or an Australian Barbarians.

Certainly there is tremendous scope for Australia to think outside the square at a time like this.

“Don’t forget, we need to remain flexible,” said McLennan. “Last year we put on a Bledisloe Cup series and a Tri-Nations where we were changing dates and locations with barely a month to go. We need to be nimble and we will.”

Rugby Australia would only cover its costs, according to McLennan, but there is enormous goodwill to be earned globally if it succeeds in staging a tournament that is becoming more and more impossible to run in either COVID-hit South Africa or even in Britain. Certainly that goodwill could only enhance Australia’s prospects of staging the 2027 Rugby World Cup.

The tour is scheduled for July-August, with the first Test date set down for July 24, at which point the Wallabies would be heavily involved in their own three-Test series against France. McLennan even suggested a combined Wallabies-France team to play the Lions in a warm-up game.

Certainly it would be ideal for the two series to run back-to-back or with as little overlap as possible, but governing everything would be the need for the Boks, the Lions and all their supporters to undertake a two-week quarantine on arrival in Australia.

“The state and federal government have been outstanding in staging international sport in Australia during the pandemic – look at the Tri-Nations series, the Indian cricket series and now the Australian Open,” McLennan said. “No one else in the world have done it better than Australia.”

He insisted that by staging a makeshift tour in Australia this year, Rugby Australia would in no way be jeopardising its prospects of staging the 2025 tour, which comes next on the Lions’ agenda. The 2001 and 2013 series in Australia were phenomenal successes.

“I rang Jurie a couple of weeks ago. It’s an idea which Andy (incoming RA CEO Andy Marinos, who starts work tomorrow) and I have been talking about and we really believe we could make it work. It’s good for us and it’s good for them.

“South African and the Lions need to continue to play Test-level rugby and it’s great for Australian rugby to have the top sides play here. And we saw during the Tri-Nations that it keeps the game front and centre with the Australian public.

“It is really up to South Africa to have the final call and it is up to the Lions management and South Africa to decide what they want to do. But the fact that we can fill stadiums and play in a relatively friendly time zones for them could deliver high benefits. All member unions need revenue in COVID times and I’m sure we could deliver them a big cheque at the end of the day.”