Well said that Man

Warren Gatland has requested that the Australian non test sides be full strength this time,NOT as in 2009.Sides with Test players hidden to avoid injury and weaken the Lions as occurred in SA.THE Best thing about traditional tours and the Lions is the last of these is local sides beating the tourists.NOT to offer them First class opposition is in my opinion demeaning that tradition.

No harm in asking but I'd expect our players to be prepared in whatever manner best suits us, rather than the Lions. Probably some chance the Force and Brumbies will put out full strength teams as the games are away from the test matches.

Absolutely. Everyone knows that the whole point of the dirtracker games is for each side to inflict the maximum number of injuries on important test players as possible.

What would AUS rather do... play their top players in non-tests, risk injury and give their opposition better tune up games, get applauded by those in the home nations and risk losing the series because of it....

or upset the lions preparation in a perfectly legal way and increase their chances of series victory????

I want the lions to play the best players but I don't think anyone should shout at the Aussies if they don't.... unless its a contractual obligation then we'd do the same.

Too much is at stake.

When SA toured the UK in 09 they played leicester who played academy kids such as Tuilagi and Youngs and even called up guys from championships sides.... we're not whiter than white ourselves.

In 2010 Thierry Henry was a villian to every single Irishman... but probably a hero in France.

Where do you think his loyalty lies.

If he were to be asked if he'd do it again... I would imagine he'd be honest and say.... Yes.

And what he did was illegal, against the rules. AUS will probably break no rules if they withhold say 25-30 squad players.

"When SA toured the UK in 09 they played leicester who played academy kids such as Tuilagi and Youngs and even called up guys from championships sides.... we're not whiter than white ourselves"

Didn't Leicester win that match?

I believe so.

PDV sent home Jannie Du Plessis & Gunthro Steenkamp in disgust at their poor performance in the scrum and post match attitude.

They said it was injury but PDV admitted in his book it was a cover.

Gatland can request all he wants but it's up to Aus to decide who plays and when.

As others have said, mid-week games are often slug-fests where opposition players are targetted. You could see it in SA last time and obviously there was Duncan McCrae and his battering of O'Gara.

At least NZ waited until a Test before assaulting BOD. Shows respect, that does.

Agree with most people Aussies can do what they want.

However if we start going down this road then the Lions Tours will become limited to the 3 Tests and maybe a match against the Barbarians and the National A team.

The Lions made the mistake in 09 by playing the Currie Cup sides rather than the Super Rugby franchises.

Same stadiums, same team right.... sort of, sort of not.

1 diff is that the Currie Cup sides have far bigger squads and incorporate more junior players as test players are on international duty and they need more cover.

This gave the SA teams the excuse to play anyone in their Currie Cup squads.... which are far weaker than their SR squads... hence why we saw many easy wins for the lions midweek side and no loses.

fa0019 wrote:The Lions made the mistake in 09 by playing the Currie Cup sides rather than the Super Rugby franchises.

Same stadiums, same team right.... sort of, sort of not.

1 diff is that the Currie Cup sides have far bigger squads and incorporate more junior players as test players are on international duty and they need more cover.

This gave the SA teams the excuse to play anyone in their Currie Cup squads.... which are far weaker than their SR squads... hence why we saw many easy wins for the lions midweek side and no loses.

in 05 the Lions played NZ provinces rather than SR teams - but that was more about timing, Super Rugby had finished so the Super sides had disbanded to their provinces. Most ABs weren't available but otherwise the provinces were pretty much full strength. The Lions did win all their midweek matches but got a couple of scares along the way (though putting 100 points on then 2nd division and semi-pro Manawatu probably didn't benefit them too much).

fa0019 wrote:In 2010 Thierry Henry was a villian to every single Irishman... but probably a hero in France.

Where do you think his loyalty lies.

If he were to be asked if he'd do it again... I would imagine he'd be honest and say.... Yes.

And what he did was illegal, against the rules. AUS will probably break no rules if they withhold say 25-30 squad players.

Have we that many players of note???

yeah pre SR the teams were more evenly spread out in SA too. 14 teams were in CC and 10 of those sides were strong.

Nowadays if you're not in the top 75 players in SA you move to France or England. In the old days it was the top 200 players who regularly saw first class rugby.

Thats why unbeaten tours in 74 were great feats in the past whereas today if you lose a midweek game you should sack all the players involved (bar vs. NZ Maori).

These days the toughest matches are against those who don't supply many test players... so are able to play their 1st XV.

The first XV of the 5th ranked side in AUS is probably better than the 2nd team of the 1st ranked side????