You know things are getting out of hand when folks are posting messages on social media – that least appropriate of titles – suggesting we all calm down.
s in, stop ripping each other a new one over their version of who should be included in the Lions squad and who should be left at home. Was it this contentious in the run-up to the 2017 squad announcement for New Zealand?
Maybe Twitter back then wasn’t quite the hurricane-force it is now. Whatever, two names into the list and it all kicked off again: Bundee Aki?
The first rule of Lions Selection Club is there are no rules. So while form gets tossed about as a key criterion, it’s not in the small print. We don’t know if Aki thought it was nice of the Lions to send him a letter way back to check on his availability, and he’s been using it as a coaster for his tea mug to protect the dining-room table. Or maybe he got it framed, and hung it in the hall.
So has he been giving it a wink and a nod every time he passes it coming in from training in the Sportsground?
Equally Jack Conan wasn’t taking it as a heads of agreement from Warren Gatland that he would be making the plane. He would have considered himself a decent outside bet though, given the speed with which he gathered pace when coming back from injury, having missed almost a year and a half of Test rugby.
First his foot, then his neck – these things have a way of telling you to skip the hope button.
The La Rochelle experience last Sunday wouldn’t have helped.
Yet Conan is part of a back row contingent where the Test line-up is an easy pick for the three Ts: Tadhg Beirne, Taulupe Faletau and Tom Curry. Except that fitness will get in the way, giving hope to Conan, Justin Tipuric, Sam Simmonds and Hamish Watson.
Putting Simmonds and Watson in the same sentence gives you a flavour of what Gatland is looking for here: brute force alongside poaching skills. It’s a surprise to some of us that Watson made the cut. It will be a shock if his duties involve carrying as much ball as he does for Scotland.
In different circumstances, surely Gatland’s crew would have included Sam Underhill and Billy Vunipola. The number eight doesn’t seem to have thrived in the less stressful environment below England’s Premiership. A powerhouse in demolishing Leinster in the quarter-finals of Europe last autumn, the curve has been downward since then. Still, you thought Gatland would back himself to get the player up to speed.
James Ryan will understand what it’s like to go from close to being a shoo-in to a man struggling to make an impact. Like Johnny Sexton, his durability is an issue now, and having a question mark over that when going toe to toe with the Springboks would worry any coach. Sexton always seemed unlikely to win a race with Finn Russell, Dan Biggar and Owen Farrell.
You’d wonder did Manu Tuilagi suffer in the same debate. Given his extraordinary ability to make a physical impact, it seemed Gatland would leave the door open for the centre to play his way back from injury over the closing stages of the Premiership. A fit Tuilagi would have been a platform on which the Lions would have launched off set-piece. No one in this squad comes close to offering that quality.
From that midfield group, the form player by a distance is Robbie Henshaw. So the coach will have to decide if Henshaw is the best man at 13, where Chris Harris got in ahead of Garry Ringrose, or to pair Harris and Henshaw. A Gatland squad that doesn’t have Jonathan Davies in it seems odd. It’s ironic that Davies should be the victim of a tough call when he was the beneficiary of the toughest one in recent Lions history when squeezing Brian O’Driscoll out of the picture in Australia in 2013.
None of it will count for much if the Lions end up as England did in the World Cup final – remarkably, the last time we got to see the Boks. So seven of the nine front rowers in Gatland’s squad were visible from a distance. The issues were over third-choice loose-head and third-choice tight-head. Ellis Genge seemed exactly the sort of player Gatland would want on such a mission, with Kyle Sinckler in the same boat on the other side.
Genge is a very aggressive carrier, and a very capable scrummager – albeit one with discipline issues. Gatland’s management of him would have been an interesting show on its own. So, two bonuses for Scotland in the shape of Rory Sutherland and Zander Ferguson.
But they’re only trotting after Bundee Aki. When we use the term ‘bolter’, it’s usually to describe a talent untried at the top level who the coach fancies can make the jump. A 31-year-old with as many caps doesn’t fit the profile. Moreover, he’s a man who starts games, not a ‘send for the game-changer off the bench’ variety. Gatland must have a pretty clear plan for him.