Compromise is needed on Lions

The Lions have been right up there in popularity and worldwide spectator interest this summer alongside the Open, the Ashes Test series and Wimbledon.

But whereas the future of those great pillars of sport is guaranteed, the same cannot be said for the Lions.

Rugby is evolving all the time, it is still new to professionalism with no settled format in place and its boundaries are still uncertain.

There have, of course, always been British Lions tours and some previous visits Down Under have lasted for months with squads travelling by land and sea at the end of the domestic season.

But times change, demands are greater, seasons are longer, players are now playing the game for a living and the problems are seemingly endless.

So much so that the Lions were asked this summer to travel to Australia at the end of a nine month home season and some leaving just a week after playing in the Heineken European Cup final.

In days gone by players stopped playing once they had been chosen for the Lions.

Newport pair Garth Evans and David Butcher for example, didn't play for Newport in the 1977 cup final because they were going to New Zealand with the Lions.

Imagine that now with clubs paying big salaries to their leading players. Unthinkable.

Yet asking the Lions to go to Australia to take on the world champions in their own back yard after such a demanding season is like telling them to go with one arm tied behind their backs.

In some cases players were already carrying injuries - though they shouldn't have been taken - while others were at best tired, at worst shattered.

Then they faced a stern regime in Australia under Graham Henry, with more training, more matches and then three Tests.

Little wonder more injuries followed, so that by the time of the third Test the Lions were on their knees.

In contrast, the Australians were fresh at the start of their season. Yet the Lions still ran the world champions mighty close, losing a desperately close series only in the final minutes of the final game.

Had it not been for the odd blunder, like the one by Jonny Wilkinson in the second Test or the one by Colin Charvis in the third, the Lions would have won the series.

What would they have achieved with a fully fit squad raring to go?

So what is the future for the Lions? Can they go on like this?

Ironically their popularity has never been greater with a staggering 20,000 fans or more making the journey to the other side of the world to follow them.

But it will be more of the same in four years time in New Zealand, where the climate will be a lot harsher unless something is done.

That could only mean curtailing the domestic season to help the Lions, but this is easier said than done and may not be realistic given the demands here of both club and country.

I know of at least one prominent coach who believes the Lions are an anachronism, that it is ludicrous to tamper with our season and that all the support witnessed Down Under this summer should be transferred to the World Cup and to tours by individual countries.

While appreciating the problems, it is a view to which I don't subscribe.

You had to be in Australia to appreciate the popularity of the Lions and to taste the experience of a lifetime.

You just can't do away with the Lions. Perish the thought I would say. But neither can it go on like this, somewhere a compromise solution has to be found.

But on one aspect of the Lions there can be no compromise - players being allowed to say in public what they like while the tour is still on.

What Austin Healey did was unforgivable, and he should have not have been even allowed to watch the final Test from the touchline.

Instead he should have been on the first flight out of Australia, behind Matt Dawson for similarly breaking ranks.

As I've said before what happens on tour stays on tour.

While appreciating the Lions are increasingly under the spotlight, if a fraction of what happened on the 1974 tour to South Africa under the great Willie John McBride had got out, it would have made front page headlines, never mind back page.

On the other hand, it's difficult for officialdom to attack players for airing those views when the coach is also writing a newspaper column, even if in a fairly laid back way, and then writes a book later on.

So the whole house has to be put in order, not just on the playing front.

I can't leave this column without reference to the Open golf, once more setting the standard in behaviour and sportsmanship.

David Duval, hitherto a ghost-like figure behind those sun glasses, upheld the game's true traditions in his touching acceptance speech.

And it was Ian Woosnam who pointed out the error which cost him many thousands of pounds when other players in other sports would have done everything in their power to camouflage it or just plain get away with it.

I've heard it said that golf is the only truly clean game left in the world. I'm inclined to agree.