Weakened teams threaten British and Irish Lions' future

THE move by Australia's Super rugby teams to field under-strength teams against the Lions may sound the death-knell to the tours.

Sam Warburton

ARE we seeing the beginning of the end of Lions tours as we know and cherish them? There is a genuine sense that unless action is taken, a combination of financial and political expediency and an increasingly congested domestic and international playing calendar will inexorably undermine the future of the last great bastion of traditional touring.

It is a process that began in 2009 in South Africa, when early matches lacked quality and crowds, and is continuing here. After the tour four years ago, categorical assurances were given that the paucity of games would not be tolerated.

Last year, the Lions thought they had received verbal guarantees from the Australian Rugby Union that provincial teams would be as strong as possible. That has not happened. Robbie Deans, the Australia coach, kiboshed that when he insisted on withdrawing his Wallaby players and cocooning them in a month-long camp to keep them from the line of fire.

The Queensland Reds, the Waratahs, the Brumbies and the Melbourne Rebels will all be missing tranches of players as a result. To add insult to injury, Western Force will field a second-string team because they have to play the Waratahs in a meaningless Super 15 fixture on Sunday. Neither side can make the play-offs, yet more than 20 players are being denied the honour of facing the Lions on the basis that two games in four days for the same squad is unsustainable.

The result is that the value of a Lions tour is being devalued. Dilute it further and there comes a time when the "what's the point?" argument wins the day. The inevitable result will be a move towards just another three-international series, perhaps with one preparatory game. The rationale for the Lions would thus be lost; there would be no more Lions, merely tours by one nation.

It is not hard to think that an accommodation could have been reached. The game against Western Force should have been the first match of the tour last Saturday, when the franchise had a blank weekend in the Super 15 and the Lions were wasting time in Hong Kong.

The statement that Australia couldn't accommodate ten games is balderdash. What about Australia A, for instance?

Who sanctioned the stopover in Hong Kong and why remains unclear. It had everything to do with money and little to do with rugby.

The disappearance of traditional tours is one of the sorriest aspects of professionalism. The Lions are the last of that line, which is what makes them so special and so valuable.

Are the Sanzar nations really prepared to see the Lions become extinct and, in so doing, sacrifice the goose that lays them a large golden egg?

The Times