Sorry, World No Longer Revolves Around Lions

During the week we saw just how huge the gulf is between the traditions of rugby and the professional game.

- Colin Boag

The Lions head coach, Warren Gatland, ventured into highly dangerous territory when he suggested that Premiership players might ask their clubs to be released early, so they can be considered for the Lions’ warm-up game against Japan. Let’s hope the England players ignore his not-so-lightly veiled threat and simply call his bluff.

For me the Lions are a bit of an enigma: like many of my generation I remember listening to their Tests on the radio, and then a few days later the reels of film would arrive and the BBC would show the games in black and white! Then we got live television coverage and the excitement ramped up even more. Of course club rugby was still an amateur game, and the Five Nations, as it was then, was almost the only live rugby we got to see. It was a very different rugby world.

Some people still see the Lions as the pinnacle of British and Irish rugby, but I no longer do. In a crowded calendar there simply isn’t enough room for them to be the pre-eminent force they once were, and their management are living in the past when they continue to regard themselves in that way.