DÉJÀ-VU ALL OVER AGAIN
THE 2025 LIONS' TOUR OF AUSTRALIA
EACH GAME ON THIS LIONS’ TOUR IS STARTING TO LOOK SUSPICIOUSLY LIKE THE ONE BEFORE IT; FLASHES OF EXCELLENCE TARNISHED BY COACH-KILLING ERRORS. THE FRUSTRATIONS ARE BEGINNING TO MOUNT.
Every Lions’ Tour, to some extent, resembles Groundhog Day; flights, arrivals, hotels, training pitches, news conferences, draughty stadiums, rinse and repeat for six weeks. It comes with the circus. But when the matches themselves start to rinse and repeat along with everything else, you start feeling somewhat, well, somewhat Bill Murray. ‘I mean, what if there really is no tomorrow?’ says Murray’s character in Harold Ramis’ 1993 time-loop comedy. ‘Let’s face it, there wasn’t one today.’
It’s becoming nigh on spooky; indeed, each game on this tour has served up almost exactly the same déjà-vu, curate’s egg of a performance; moments of clarity, snapshots of excellence, snatches of synchronicity all interspersed with a deluge of indiscipline, a fistful of handling errors and a jumble of inconsistency. And frustratingly so since, somewhere in there, you sense there’s a very decent Test series-winning team fighting for coherence.
So when they’re direct, composed, disciplined and on the same page on both sides of the ball, the Lions can be brutally effective. But the litany of mistakes are opening doors to the opposition, leaving too many points out on the pitch and stifling their obvious creativity. Errors are an occupational hazard - war is always a contest of blunders - but when you keep making the same ones, you’re beyond simple coincidence and knitting yourself a worrying pattern.
And it’s the compound errors that are the real problem, backing up one mistake with another. So at the very start of the Brumbies’ game, the Lions lost their own kick-off, mislaid the box-kick and then gave away a penalty; we were ninety seconds in and they were already on their goal-line building a dam which the Brumbies eventually battered down to open the scoring, essentially on the back of three, consecutive Lions’ gaffes.
Later in the game, James Lowe hoofed a mighty ball downfield, Tom Curry sprinted his socks off to chase it down, pressurised the kicker, forced a miscue and Lions hoovered up sixty, priceless metres. It was quite outstanding work from the open-side. Except the Lions then went off their feet at one ruck, fell offside at the next and, within a fat minute, they were back where they started, except it was a Brumbies line-out. I could go on. And on. Look, single errors you can deal with but back-to-back mistakes are coach-killers; as Andy Farrell pointed put at the final whistle ‘we just kept the opposition in the game’.
The breakdown? It’s fast becoming a curse. It seems only Jac-kal Morgan is offering the Lions a serious pilfering threat on this Tour while the opposition are burgling ball at will. Again, it’s a recurring theme; isolated players, poor ball presentation, insufficient numbers, inaccurate clean-outs and - as a result of all four - game-changing turnovers. The Waratahs were all over the Lions like a rash at the breakdown, likewise the Brumbies. Neither was a surprise; neither was adequately addressed. The Australian Head Coach, Joe Schmidt, will be almost dribbling ahead of the First Test.
The other spotty problem is finishing. Against the Waratahs in Sydney, Josh van Der Flier lost the ball over the line, likewise Ellis Genge. Genge also had another ‘try’ rubbed out for a line-out infringement. In Canberra, Jame Lowe failed to finish what - by his standards - was a sitter, a rolling maul was held up and Ollie Chessum got over the line at the death but couldn’t ground the ball. Credit the defensive efforts but that’s 21 points that went begging in two straight games. The best teams nail those moments.
The restarts are still a small grimace and key defensive sets were - again - disjointed. Tommy Freeman’s a four-square presence with or without the ball but he appears to be struggling to get on the same page as the guys inside him. And for all his obvious menace in attack, you sense the door might still be ajar for Mack Hansen, the more so if the rest of the three-quarter line is Irish.
But there were bundles of positives in Canberra. Maro Itoje, once more, bestrode his narrow world like a Colossus, Ollie Chessum turned in a Popeye of a performance, Gary Ringrose isn’t going to die wondering on this tour and Marcus Smith had his most creative outing thus far. Factor in an understated yet hugely influential performance from Finn Russell and there were plenty of pluses. Russell, in particular, looks to be in his absolute pomp.
And you sense the Lions - and the guts of the Test team - now has something it hasn’t had for a fortnight or more; namely, time on the training paddock to iron out the creases and wrinkles. Given they’ve spent valuable hours travelling, unpacking and playing instead of tuning up properly, the next ten days buys them some serious clock. As Jamison Gibson-Park conceded post-match in Canberra, most of their preparation these past two weeks has been little more than meetings and video sessions.
Saturday’s game against the AU/NZ Invitational XV will also offer real insights. Who benches behind Tadhg Furlong? And behind Dan Sheehan? Can Jac Morgan make an unanswerable case for the seven shirt; can Ben Earl/Henry Pollock force their way into the Test squad? Huwipulotu still have a chance to force the First Test selection meeting into extra-time, likewise Matt Hansen. And despite the optimistic news on Blair Kinghorn’s knee injury, the Lions will be praying for a big game from Hugo Keenan. Full-back on this tour is suddenly looking like a hex, hence the Swiss Army penknife that is Jamie Osbourne blowing in from Lisbon as cover.
But it’ll be tin hats all round in Adelaide against über-physical opponents who, at 6/1 in some markets, could easily make the bookmakers look daft. For the Lions, though, it’s a chance to scrape the curate’s egg into the bin and step out of the Groundhog Day time warp. ‘I was in the Virgin Islands once,’ says Bill Murray, back in the eponymous film. ‘I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get that day over and over and over …’ Well, precisely. Enough Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. It’s time for some lobster and piña coladas in the Virgin Islands.
