Based on form, who would make your Lions 2017 squad?

Only kidding!

It's been a rough few months. The hype has been building for quite some time. The series saw divisions and questions raised. People stood by their players or coach and others put forward their own preferences.

Ultimately the Lions have come away with a series win. It is not a matter of what could have or should have been done to avoid defeat. It is more what can be done better next time and what the Lions achieved this time round.

It's certainly not been dull around these boards. If one thing as an observer the Lions attracts interest like no other. Even the World Cup in some respects. This Lions victory has ensured its survival. Well done to the 2013 stock. Plenty more rugby to divide and excite opinion but let us acknowledge and hope that nothing else this year will cause as much interest and debate this year than what we have just witnessed. Congrats to Gatland and his squad.  

Kia, you really know nothing about rugby, just admit it.

Only Kidding? That guy can't even get into the Harlequins second string team, and you think he's shown enough already to be a Lions certainty for 2017????

His brother, Just, is an okay scrumhalf though.

I was posting on the cricket board Fly. Don't know how my post ended up on here...

Pretty sure A N Other will make an appearance, he has been on a lot of squads

The way some teams are taking on SH players and converting them to Ireland, Scotland England and Wales there may be very few British or Irish players in four years time. There were enough SH players during this Lions tour including the coach.

glamorganalun wrote:The way some teams are taking on SH players and converting them to Ireland, Scotland England and Wales there may be very few British or Irish players in four years time. There were enough NH players during this Lions tour including the coach.

Just clarify that bit? Gatland is a NH coach?

Yeah Secret didn't you know they recently moved New Zealand its just of te coast of Cork now

neilthom7 wrote:Yeah Secret didn't you know they recently moved New Zealand its just of te coast of Cork now

Leave NZ where it is, but if they want to move Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga to the Pembrokeshire coast I will find them all jobs.

SecretFly wrote:

glamorganalun wrote:The way some teams are taking on SH players and converting them to Ireland, Scotland England and Wales there may be very few British or Irish players in four years time. There were enough SH players during this Lions tour including the coach.

Just clarify that bit? Gatland is a NH coach?

Thanks, just updated the post i.e., SH

kiakahaaotearoa wrote:Only kidding!

 

You might have been kidding but the Sunday Times got 3 of their writers to pick a Lions XV today for the 2017 series. Some interesting choices in there (Henry Thomas, Anthony Watson, Ken Owens, Luke Cowan-Dickie) but some very dull ones as well (mainly from Stephen Jones)

All I know is BOD better be in the squad otherwise I'm kicking up a fuss....

Facebook campaign opens again if he isn't.

I'd expect nothing less from the ST, especially Stephen Jones, jelly.

With Murray's win though and the upcoming Ashes series, rugby will be drowned out of the headlines for quite some time. Based on a lot of what we've seen, that can't be a bad thing.

Murray win? Good for him and Scotland.
Ashes? What's that?

No rugby won't we drowned out by either of those in these parts. GAA finals bulid up will be the absolutely passionate end to the summer here. You think rugby is passionate, watch some of that stuff in the closing stages!

The tiny window when Rugby has supremacy on the back pages of British national dailys is over. A couple of days of Murraymani will be followed by the return of goalgame with only the Ashes getting even a toehold between now and the 6Ns.


Rugby will only get prominence (and then only briefly) if anyone beats SA or NZ in the autumn.

Rugby gets prominence in Nz and Sa but it takes something monumental to make headlines in the UK and even then it tends to be fleeting. Seems understandable as British sport in general seems to be in a golden age.

kiakahaaotearoa wrote:Rugby gets prominence in Nz and Sa but it takes something monumental to make headlines in the UK and even then it tends to be fleeting. Seems understandable as British sport in general seems to be in a golden age.

Not in Wales. It is always top sport in newspapers here and at 6 nations, WC and Lions it is often front pages as well as back pages.

neilthom7 wrote:Yeah Secret didn't you know they recently moved New Zealand its just of te coast of Cork now

And just like that we're the dominant hemisphere  

doctornickolas wrote:

kiakahaaotearoa wrote:Rugby gets prominence in Nz and Sa but it takes something monumental to make headlines in the UK and even then it tends to be fleeting. Seems understandable as British sport in general seems to be in a golden age.

Not in Wales. It is always top sport in newspapers here and at 6 nations, WC and Lions it is often front pages as well as back pages.

Be fair doc, although England has nobody to speak of, Scotland has Murray and Hoy, Wales has Tuppence and the six counties their golden girl in the shapely Mary Peters.

Although it's not exactly a British collective success, it certainly is a UK one.