England should cede from the Lions

First topic message reminder :

Prompted by

Griff wrote:

greytiger wrote:

Risca Rev wrote:

greytiger wrote:Whatever are the English doing associating themselves of this pile of cack?
There's an RWC to be won.

Cole should be at home resting/training.

Agree. They did try their best to mess Saturday up for us.

Exactly.
Let the Celtic Lions just get on with it and allow the English just to plod on unloved and alone.

GreyTiger, you don't like the Lions, we get it, you keep telling us over and over and over.  But why bother constantly posting about your dislike for it.  It's really boring.  Start a thread on your dislike by all means, but why try to derail the match thread which is being used by people who like the concept?  At the end of the day they're not going to stop the Lions concept just because Portnoy's got his arse in his hands.

The Celts need a string of successes down under.
The English have to develop their own game in their own way.

Short of ensuring that the team coach is a neutral one, I can't see a way in which England can blend with the Celtic way of playing. So all stakeholders would be better off with a Celtic Lions in the mid-term of the RWC cycle whilst England (like France) just play for their own purposes.

Portnoy's Complaint/Grey Tiger surely you should change your thread to "Should Tigers cede from the Lions?"

You are worried because a Lions tour normally leads to players being hampered in the season after. You are worried that Tigers players in particular will suffer.

I think it will knacker most of the players/ lead to injuries who take part in the Lions tour but it's worth it. It's a great experience and as Londontiger says it gives players an opportunity to train with different coaches.

These players need these kinds of tours to show their mettle and increase their profile.

It's also an opportunity for English,Scottish,Welsh and Irish to put down the pitchforks.

beshocked wrote:Portnoy's Complaint/Grey Tiger surely you should change your thread to "Should Tigers cede from  the Lions?"

You are worried because a Lions tour normally leads to players being hampered in the season after. You are worried that Tigers players in particular will suffer.

I think it will knacker most of the players/ lead to injuries who take part in the Lions tour but it's worth it. It's a great experience and as Londontiger says it gives players an opportunity to train with different coaches.

These players need these kinds of tours to show their mettle and increase their profile.

It's also an opportunity for English,Scottish,Welsh and Irish to put down the pitchforks.

Thanks for your input 'shocked. Very incisive as ever.

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6 Lions

Greytiger a Lions tour might not be important to you. Quite clearly not but it's very popular and well respected. Once every 4 years the English,Welsh,Irish and Scottish support the same team.

I can understand you not liking it because of the player burnout etc.

You talk about the Celtic way. I wouldn't say the Scottish,Irish and Welsh styles are as alike as you seem to think.

Ask yourself - would you rather have the likes of Youngs x2,Farrell, Mako,Barritt on tour with Argentina or is it not good for English rugby that other players get a chance to prove their worth whilst the guys on the Lions tour?

We know these players are good, Argentina tour is about development and giving some other guys a shot. I think that's excellent for English rugby.

Australia are top class opposition for players to test their mettle against.

Quite frankly I'd rest most of the England squad v Argentina.

However had the summer tour be against a serious country, I'd have understood a full squad.

Portnoy, welcome back!

Don't know if that's damned with faint praise As, but this is a professional era now. And professional standards should apply.

Maybe if the Lions cycle was in RWC year+1 I'd be slightly ameliorated but RWC-2 is too close for comfort for countries to prepare properly.

Portnoy's Complaint wrote:Quite frankly I'd rest most of the England squad v Argentina.

However had the summer tour be against a serious country, I'd have understood a full squad.

Argentina 1st team is a serious country. We havnt won every match down there for a very long time

Portnoy's Complaint wrote:Quite frankly I'd rest most of the England squad v Argentina.

However had the summer tour be against a serious country, I'd have understood a full squad.

Massivley arrogant comment there Portnoy old chap. Seems to be what you're all about though.

lostinwales wrote:

Portnoy's Complaint wrote:Quite frankly I'd rest most of the England squad v Argentina.

However had the summer tour be against a serious country, I'd have understood a full squad.

Argentina 1st team is a serious country. We havnt won every match down there for a very long time

But the Argentines simply had to rest their top squad, lost. England did and still won convincingly with a shadow side. I'd certainly have rested the Tigers players currently on loan to the Lions plus Farrell.

Everything these days is measured by RWC success.

Or to put it differently, you wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in Hades of successfully launching a Lions project post-professionalism.

A full strength Argentinian side is a match for anyone. We knew before we toured that they wouldn't have their best players available so it's not arrogant to talk of resting some of ours.

But it is arrogant to talk of Argentina as not a serious rugby nation.

I apologise.

I meant 'not serious' as being 10th placed side in the rankings and a side that has no pro league.

I call 'serious' teams the SH top three.

Not to say that a summer 4-test series (shared home and away) against any of the other NH 5Ns wouldn't be serious.

Or a proper series v a PIs Lions.

Any of those would be a proper test series for England.
Many of which we'd lose.

for a team with no pro league and limited resources who continues to perform better than Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Italy in the RWC since professionalism is worthy of anyone's praise (1 3rd place, 2 QF and 1 pool exit)... only NZ, SA, AUS, ENG & FRA have a better record.

No bad for a "non serious" team.

So a serious non-serious side then............

Good job that France has the balls to employ their players then.

Otherwise they'd have almost no pro players.

Didn't the SH4Ns initially allow them in conditional on the formation of a domestic pro league?

Most unions run a deficit year on year in part to their national game supporting their domestic game which haemorrhages money. Argentina don't have those issues.

Argentina continue to churn out better quality players, trained up by other nations and they don't have to spend millions in domestic league costs.

Who are the fools?

France............................ as the recent results are showing..............

fa0019 wrote:Most unions run a deficit year on year in part to their national game supporting their domestic game which haemorrhages money. Argentina don't have those issues.

Argentina continue to churn out better quality players, trained up by other nations and they don't have to spend millions in domestic league costs.

Who are the fools?

I don't know. You'll have to give me advice.

If a Union owns its teams and haemorrhages money then whose fault is it?
If a Union runs its national affairs whilst its clubs (mostly) lose money then whose fault is it?

I'll leave it to you to square that particular circle.

Cross-referencing England's 2011 Rugby World Cup squad with the 2009 Lions squad and only Lee Mears, Simon Shaw and Tom Croft made both. Mears fell from first choice England hooker to third choice England hooker between events, while Croft really cemented himself above Haskell as England's first choice 6, with Haskell moving across the backrow to accommodate this.

For one reason or another, Sheridan, Vickery, Worsley, Ellis, Flutey and Monye (and I suppose you could throw in Tim Payne) didn't greatly profit from their Lions experience - although in some cases this was due to injury-enforced retirement.

I will agree that Mako, Tom Youngs, Farrell and to an extent Parling and Tuilagi have appeared to come on during the tour, and maybe 2009 was an exception for England players rather than the rule. I think possibly as with any tour there are winners and losers, but with it being the Lions the magnitude of those wins and losses is that much greater.

robbo277 wrote:Cross-referencing England's 2011 Rugby World Cup squad with the 2009 Lions squad and only Lee Mears, Simon Shaw and Tom Croft made both. Mears fell from first choice England hooker to third choice England hooker between events, while Croft really cemented himself above Haskell as England's first choice 6, with Haskell moving across the backrow to accommodate this.

For one reason or another, Sheridan, Vickery, Worsley, Ellis, Flutey and Monye (and I suppose you could throw in Tim Payne) didn't greatly profit from their Lions experience - although in some cases this was due to injury-enforced retirement...

I think it's very hard to make a case that the England set-up has benefitted at all from the Lions.

McGeechan turned to English players in 1989 and they helped win the series. We had actually beaten Australia the previous year, so you can't argue we overcame any mental barriers, especially since we lost our next two encounters, including a World Cup final. Arguably, it also didn't help that McGeechan and the Scottish players got to see so many England players close up. Good luck to them for putting the knowledge to good use, but the 1990 Murrayfield defeat put the shackles on England. Much easier to make the case that England game out a net loser from the 1989 Lions tour.

In 1993, McGeechan fielded as many as eleven England men in his Test starting XV. I'd rather we had just toured as England. We managed to beat the All Blacks when they visited Twickenham later that year. Scotland also contributed a large number of players to the Lions, and they also played New Zealand a few months later. They lost 15-51.

On that tour, Ian Hunter, one of our fittest and strongest wings, picked up an injury which blighted his career. I don't doubt Lomu would have blitzed any England back line later on in 1995 but a fit Hunter would have presented a stiffer challenge than the Underwoods. McGeechan overlooked Probyn even though he was arguably the best prop in his position in the north.

In 1997, Martin Johnson got his first international captaincy which probably counts as a plus. Difficult to see how else we really benefitted. One of the best English tourists was John Bentley but he didn't do anything for us. Arguably, a number of England players peaked on that tour rather than generating any momentum for their careers in the national side. We even had a shambolic match scheduled against Australia straight after the Lions tour which meant the knackered Lions players joining up with the England boys who had been in Argentina. Ridiculous planning.

In 2001, England had already started to beat Southern Hemisphere sides and had just done the Australians in 2000. Henry flogged the players in training and managed to crush Balshaw's talent. Not only did we lose the series, a heavy-legged England lost a potential Grand Slam in the delayed match against Ireland and then lost another to France in 2002.  To say the 2001 Lions tour did nothing for England is an understatement.

No-one really came out of 2005 with any credit. Some England players perhaps prolonged their careers to try and finish with a Lions experience which didn't help our post World Cup development.

2007 was all about Ireland and Wales but, as Robbo points out above, the English contingent didn't gain much from their involvement if you measure it by their later contribution for England.

I enjoy the Lions tours but England don't reap any development, coaching or psychological benefits from the experience. I think it's also possible to argue the other Home Unions have gained little advantage but I don't want take this thread too far from it's original topic.

Portnoy - you continually go on about "Celts".

I feel no more affinity towards Scotland and Wales than I do for England.

"Celtic Lions" will never work. The Lions long standing history and links to the old British Commonwealth are two of its largest pillars. Take away those and take about 50% of the fans away and it would flounder.

I think same would be true if any of the 4 nations abandoned the concept.

"links to the old British commonwealth" doesn't sound like an entirely comfortable fit for Ireland, Staggy?

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:"links to the old British commonwealth" doesn't sound like an entirely comfortable fit for Ireland, Staggy?

Alright Pal

Not for us for the host nations. Down here in Australia they see the Lions as "the poms" and they love a chance of beating the poms at something.

Playing the RaboDirect Pro12 Select XV won't have same appeal.

Familiar theme running through all of Portnoys posts.

If the home nations can start beating the 3N away from home/grab a rare series victory people may begin to question the longevity of the Lions themselves....

England in the early 90s started to get into this line of thinking, back then the lions wasn't necessarily about the best 15 players, it was about the representation of each nation. Chaps like Peter Wright travelled ahead of Jeff Probyn... McGeechan has admitted this as he said that before he took the job for the 97 tour he told the board he would only accept if he could choose the best players, regardless of nationality...i.e. had it been a given then there would be no point mentioning it.

It isn't a coincidence that in both 89 and 93 the 1st tests fielded a more representative XV rather than in the 2nd tests where sides chosen on the genuine pecking order.

Take this scenario.... 2012, Wales beat AUS 2-1 in the series (could have easily happened)... yet in 2013 the Lions (a so called better side) loses 1-2 (could easily happen now).

Would the Lions still be seen as legitimate?

It can be very disruptive to players fitness and mental well-being. How will Mike Phillips be feeling today? All this talk of him being injured is rubbish. The 2nd test is the most important match in Lions rugby, he was dropped, he wasn't rested.

Now he wouldn't have been dropped had he been playing for Wales as he is still clearly the best they have.... but now a pecking order has unravelled and how will that affect his confidence in himself... and his coach.
When he comes up against Youngs in 2014 6N how will he feel.... still as bullish as ever??

I missed the lions part of this game as Portnoyova had me pushing a trolley round Tescos amongst other things.

Reading some of the bile on the threads, I reckon that the Lions should be humanely destroyed.

Justifiable felicide in this case.

NOT to be associated with species Panthera tigris.