Sir Clive looks for answers

June 18, 2005

On the heels of their 77-3 smashing of the United States Eagles two Saturdays ago, the Six Nations champion Wales sailed into a Toronto heat-wave and steamrolled Canada 60-3. That makes an aggregate score-line of 137-6 against North America in the space of a week. Not exactly inspirational stuff for rugby fans in this part of the world.

Professionalism, it appears, is creating a whole lot of daylight between the top-tier nations and those that still remain playing in amateur environments.

The thrashings are made worse when you realize that the very best of the Welsh players never fronted up in North America, because they were down in New Zealand representing the British & Irish Lions. Perhaps the Eagles and Maple Leaf scores were flattering to deceive.

Those Lions faced their biggest bump in their tour with a 19-13 loss against the New Zealand Maori at Waikato Stadium in Hamilton. The Maoris carried the day by hitting the rucks in greater numbers, winning turnover ball, hanging onto it in Lions territory, and hitting their opponents back in the tackle far more often than the tourists managed. The Lions actually threatened to steal the game late, but it would have been a grave injustice, the Maori clearly the superior team for at least three-quarters of the contest.

On Wednesday the Lions tried turning things around against the Wellington Lions, a team that is usually one of the top tier in NZ’s National Provincial Championship (NPC) but on this occasion Wellington’s best players (Tana Umaga, Conrad Smith, Jerry Collins, Rodney So'oialo) weren’t available since they’re being rested for the All Blacks.

In the end, the Lions ran away from the Cake-Tin as firm 23-6 winners, but it was thoroughly unconvincing. England’s wonder-boy Jonny Wilkinson made his first appearance on tour, and while he knocked over five-of-seven between the sticks, his all-around passing, running and kicking game was rusty. Wilkinson hasn’t played much rugby over the past 18 months, and the form of his team and the light duty of his star have got to be a very worrying concerns for Lions coach Clive Woodward.

One week away from the First Test against the All Blacks, the question on the lips of rugby fans everywhere: did Woodward overcook these Lions before they even set foot in New Zealand?

Woodward assembled a huge team of 45 players. A typical touring team from the amateur era would be 26-30 players, and in those days the tours were much more tasking, with a lot more games and a fourth Test. There would also be a lot more preparation games against provincial teams in the lead-up to the First test, so a coach could solve the riddles of his form players and best combinations.

The game frequency of the touring schedule stays the same – two per week. Typically the Saturday game is where you would suit up your “Probable” Test combination against superior provincial sides, and the mid-week game was against smaller provincial unions where the tourists’ “dirt-trackers” would try to impress the coaches and play their way into the Test team. With 30 players and weeks to get it right, the starting XV and bench would work itself out.

Now with Woodward selecting 45 players and having only 5 games before their First Test – do the math! Wilkinson has now started one game – against a weakened Wellington side – and he didn’t look sharp. And that’s the extent of his preparation. The way the schedule is set up, it is unrealistic that Wilkinson can afford to start any more games.

Bottomline: Wilkinson won’t be getting anything more than time off the bench, at most, before the First Test, and will get into the First XV on reputation alone. How much confidence Wilkinson will have going into this First Test, while having nightmares about Jerry Collins and Richie McCaw targeting his reconstructed shoulder, is anybodies guess.

But don’t tell Woodward his team is lacking for confidence. Woodward says the Lions are on the verge of “something special,” and that the Lions preparation seems like “déjà vu” from England’s RWC campaign of 2003.

Is anybody buying this?

The Lions have now played four games and have yet to produce anything more than twenty minutes of high-skilled team rugby at precision and pace -- and half of those were the very first ten minutes to kick off the tour. They've been scratching their heads since.

It begs the follow-on question of why Sir Clive hired Alistair Campbell – British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recently retired propaganda minister -- to control the press relations for his team. Sexing it up a little, are we Sir Clive?

This looks like a military campaign where the supporting ranks are miles ahead of the infantry, standing up in a theater like Homer Simpson impatiently tapping his wrist-watch. C’mon already, we’ve planned everything, what’s taking you so long???!!

When this tour is all said-and-done, the players will retire, they’ll write their memoirs, and we’ll get our backroom “Downing Street Memos.” One suspects the headache Woodward is having behind closed doors is nothing like the rosy picture he’s painting for the rest of us.