Modern day warriors deserve far better

IT IS high time rugby union realised ignoring the past is the preserve of the ignorant, shown by the fact today the game’s most revered event is a throwback to the game’s amateur era that was ended in an International Rugby Board meeting in a Paris hotel 30 years ago in 1995.

- Ross Reyburn

Today nothing else matches the huge success of the legendary British & Irish Lions tour as the best players in the UK and Ireland play Test series in either New Zealand, South Africa or Australia every four years.

Their huge following saw more than 30,000 supporters crossing the equator to watch the 2009 Lions in South Africa during the five week tour while an estimated 20,000 made the longer journey to New Zealand in 2017.

Such is the interest in the forthcoming Lions tour to Australia that after months of newspaper speculation, a 2,000 audience attended the tour party announcement at the O2 arena in London on May 8 while a 100,000 crowd is expected at the Lions v Australia 2nd Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on July 26.

For years the Premiership, a bankrupt sporting concept funded by RFU millions fielding England’s best players, has inexplicably been allowed to undermine the Lions tour. Now the other great survivor of the amateur era, the World Cup, is being undermined by World Rugby who, seduced by a vast Qatar Airlines sponsorship offer, have created a biannual Nations Championship to find the world’s best rugby nation.