The Lions and Nation performances

This seems to be a recurring theme on this board, why does the topic of individual home nation performances in the past six nations and against Australia count towards the individuals picked for the Lions?

I've seen posters mentioning that Ireland shouldn't be making up the second majority of the tour due to their six nations performance, why? The players that have been selected are great players, Ireland had plenty of injuries in the last 6 nations that would somewhat explain their results. Bare in mind I would replace Heaslip with Kelly Brown.

Its seen as a problem that the majority of players on the Lions tour are Welsh, given Wales' recent record against Australia, most have somehow drawn the conclusion that the Lions would also lose to Australia if the majority of the 22 are Welsh, forgetting the fact that Wales lost by the most minimal of margins in their summer tour and in the autumn. Statistics can be misleading and looking at statistics alone and not the game itself explains nothing about the performances.

My point is that TEAM efforts in the 6 Nations are not a reflection, and should not be a predictions of how the Lions will perform, therefore bickering about why there should be more Scottish players or English players because they finished higher in the 6 Nations is ridiculous.

What indicators are you going to use then Mike

Personal favourites..... Nobody tours if they were born in the month of July...... Gingers are out...........

There has to be some indicators of an individuals performance against a SH side in their own country over a long period of time away from home, family and friends.

6Ns performances are as close an indicator of that level of intensity as you could have. Also the last team to play Australia in a similar situation i.e. a summer tour and a 3 test situation was Wales.

They lost 3-0 yes it was close, yes they could have won all 3 games, but you also look at the quality of the Australian squad and yet they still lost three on the bounce. Take into account that the majority of the players who lost three games are now touring again this year.

Agree that if Gatland had looked at CURRENT FORM he surely must pick the players who are best of breed in their position it didn't happen and now we have to live with it. After all this is a LIONS TEAM not some tight knit community of nodding dogs. Thankfully there are also some other exciting summer tours to compliment the Lions, I am not only looking forward to seeing some exciting combos that you rarely see Jon Davies/BOD or maybe Gray/POC for example but also really excited now about maybe seeing the Killer Bs up against SA and Samoa at the same time.

I would look at the performance of the individuals in more detail, theres no point saying O'Driscoll shouldn't be in the Lions because Ireland finished 5th is there?

If you analyse why Wales lost the games vs Australia you can see that it was down to some poor individual errors, individuals who will NOT be playing for the Lions.(Hibbard gave away the final penalty in one of the tests but realistically they shouldn't have been in that situation if it wasn't for Priestland giving away needless possession).

Wales ran them close in the 4 tests they played (summer and autumn), you replace the players who were the weak links or off form and have a stronger bench, then you have a team that is fully capable of winning this series 3-0. Therefore Wales' performances vs Australia as an indicator for these tests are irrelevant

Mike, Perhaps there are two different reasons why folks mention Wales' recent record against Australia:
1. Do the Australians have some sort of mental ju-ju over the Welsh players, and will this impact their belief that they can win?
2. Have the Australian simply worked out how Wales play (haven't we all?) and devised strategies to stop it?

Arguments could probably be made in favour of and against both points, but there is clearly an issue there, which can't be swept under the carpet, don't you think?

The other thing which will be interesting for me is the scrummage, and refereeing interpretations, given that England and Wales make up 8 out of 9 front five players in the squad. The IRB stats showed Wales and England winning less than a third of clean ball on their own scrums, altho they got plenty of penalties - will be interesting to see if the Aussies work out a way to stop the 3-pointers

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Mike, Perhaps there are two different reasons why folks mention Wales' recent record against Australia:
1. Do the Australians have some sort of mental ju-ju over the Welsh players, and will this impact their belief that they can win?
2. Have the Australian simply worked out how Wales play (haven't we all?) and devised strategies to stop it?

Arguments could probably be made in favour of and against both points, but there is clearly an issue there, which can't be swept under the carpet, don't you think?

The other thing which will be interesting for me is the scrummage, and refereeing interpretations, given that England and Wales make up 8 out of 9 front five players in the squad. The IRB stats showed Wales and England winning less than a third of clean ball on their own scrums, altho they got plenty of penalties - will be interesting to see if the Aussies work out a way to stop the 3-pointers

Good post.

Players get found out quickly in lions tours. Players in good sides such as Keith Earls in 2009 quickly show that amongst others they are not so prolific... he just wasn't ready in 09 and it was a mistake in hindsight to take him esp. over Armitage who should still feel hard done by.

The only problem is... there aren't that many tough matches to solve these issues.... in years gone series were much longer and dirt-tracker matches prior to 1st test were higher in quality and of greater number... the job is getting more difficult to find your best XV.

Coaches are having to go with their gut... i.e. Lee Mears, Vickery & AW Jones in 09, the Wilkinson-Jones experiment in 05 etc etc etc.

IronMike - Its like pixxing in the wind mate and I wouldn't bother if I was you