The Lions get red-shirted... and Tuqiri goes Tah-Tahs

Last weekend the Partly British with Occasional Irish Lions Rugby XV lost their Test series against the Sarth Effricorn Sprungborks, two-blot with one test to play. As with previous professional-era Lions tours to NZ and Australia, the stadia of South Africa are filled with red-shirted fans - the aerial-footage redwash of Fortress Loftus Versfeld being a case in point - as presumably are the pubs, hotels and restaurants, taking advantage of their forex rate advantage to splash their pounds and Euros about the place like Roman imperial largesse. Everyone goes on, and on, and fucking ON, about how wonderful the Lions are for international rugby, how important they are for the spirit of the game, how - like the Barbarians - they are a link to the traditions and history of the game. Now, obviously, I'm not qualified to make a comment on rugby union, being as though I went to a government school and have never seen a soggy Sao in my life, but one pertinent point occurs to me.

What's the fucking point if they never win a fucking game?

The last time the Lions won a test was in Brisbane in 2001, mugging a tired home side on their last legs after winning the previous World Cup who bought the PR story and dramatically underestimated their visitors. The last time they won a series was 1997 in Bokkeland, under precisely the same circumstances. They have won one - count 'em, one - series against the All Blacks, in 1971, and as you'd expect the NZ rugger media is still crying foul over percieved injustices surrounding THAT to this day. Yes, it's a lovely concept - every four years, the four Home Nations pitting their best players against the best the Southern Hemisphere has to offer. But if all it is now is an excuse for a bunch of largely objectionable City of London stockbroker types to buy matching scarlet Adidas jerseys and head off on a junket through the colonies with a bunch of other Hooray Henrys... what's the fucking point?

I get the PR argument. I really do. The 2001 Lions tour was Good Times, and I mean that sincerely as someone who really had no fucking time for union or what it stood for up to that point. As such I'd never even heard of the concept before that tour, but had sure as hell heard all about it once the Lions had mugged the Wallabies at a scarlet-drenched 'Gabba. The fact that the ARU had to give out gold scarves and T-shirts at the gate for tests two and three tells you all you need to know about your average bandwagoneer Wallabies fan. The Lions fans outsang and outbarracked the wanna-be Wallaby support, even if the on-field action went the way of the golden GPS lads. Like a less obnoxious version of the Barmy Army, they gave good crowd. I can't speak to the atmosphere at the grounds, but in the pubs of south east Queensland - the RE where we watched game one, Adrenalin for game two and O'Malleys in Surfers game three - the place was absolutely buzzing.

Yet not even Graham Henry and the nucleus of the 2003 RWC winning Pommy outfit could get the Lions over the line that time, and since then the Lions story has been a confection of arse frosted with more arse. In fact, I'm beginning to see Lions tours as I'm beginning to see State of Origin. A massively overhyped but inexorably flawed concept which on sporting grounds should be bound for the bullet, but which commercial concerns will prop up like the reanimated corpse of Bernie from Weekend Therewith for as long as the bucks keep rolling in. There's no doubt, in the case of Origin, that the seat of power and influence in rugby league has shifted to Queensland. It's the only place where stadiums still sell out - 40K plus for Broncos-Titans games, versus 20Ks max for traditional Sydney stoushes like Dogs-Eels or Bunnies-Dragons. More importantly for the commercial stakeholders it's the only place where Nine's live(ish) NRL coverage still wins its timeslot, every week, no questions asked. This creates an inevitable positive feedback loop - more money, more interest, more player development, more quality players. Where you start or finish on that loop doesn't matter, it's all good for Queensland. And the obvious inverse is happening in NSW - less money, less interest, less players. Queensland will dominate Origin for the foreseeable future - at least the next five years - and good luck to 'em. They care more - they always have. Eventually, the lack of NSW interest in watching a man kicking a dog - in particular their dog - will probably kill off Origin, unless there's another Joey Johns about to be unearthed from the mining towns of the Hunter.

The Lions' problem is similar - a bunch of randomly assembled all-stars from four nations who hate each other are never going to get over the top of a pack of well-drilled professionals who play alongside each other every month of the rugby season. Any time you see an All Star team or a Rest Of The World lineup or any sort of conglomerate side come together against a properly sorted Team of Others, the result is never pretty. The Harlem Globetrotters might have touched up the Washington Generals on a regular basis but there's no doubt they would get their arses handed to them by the Lakers. Money Bill's Baa Baas GOT their arses handed to them by the Wobbilies. As did the all-star, no-interest ICC World XI a couple of years back against the Australians in three one-dayers and a one-off six day test match at the SCG (two days of which were spent in the hotel bar, having been proven surplus to requirements.) And regardless of the fact that the Lions led for almost all of last night's game against the Boks - mugged by a penalty on the buzzer, in a move BLATANTLY STOLEN from the Wallabies of Rod Macqueen's era - there was never really any doubt about who would win this series.

Which leaves two questions, each of them equally pressing.

One - should the 2013 B & I Lions think about touring some country they might actually BEAT in a three-Test series instead, like Argentina? Or Guam?

Two - what the fuck is wrong with South African people that this unit is their idea of an ideal sports host?

Jakobus Johannes 'Kobus' Wiese is the face of Supersport's Lions Tour coverage. He was a bookend in the '95 RWC-winning Boks outfit. And he was most demonstrably, as mentioned in other media commitments, born when meat was cheap. Is this what South African manhood is meant to aspire to? Do Supersport and the SARU wonder why the only obvious black faces in Loftus were Bryan Habana and a couple of his mates in Springbok jerseys, as distinct from the Rainbow Nation's turnout for Bafana Bafana's Confederations Cup semi against Brazil a few days previous?

Maybe that's not fair. Maybe he's from a family of anti-apartheid civil disobedience activists, like Luke Watson. Maybe he'd punch PW Botha in the face if he met him. (Which would appear unlikely as the fascist old apartheider dropped off the twig in 2006.) I just doubt it somehow. The moment Kobus opens that boerwoers-disposal-unit of a gob, all I can hear him saying is: 'DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY.'

And three - yeah I know I said two, but this is a hastily and half-arsedly tacked-on update several days after the original, on the flimsy pretence of it also being a rugby story but also 'cos I can't be bollocksed writing anything new - what the fuck did Wallabies and Waratards winger Lotsa Tequilas do THIS time to warrant the ARU finally giving him the arse? Given the anal retentiveness of the current ARU administration - where starting a food fight is tantamount to turning up at Glebe Police Station too drunk to remember your own name and being crowned 'the drunkest human being ever' by the Fuzzy Muff - it's anyone's guess. These are mine.

Take your pick from:

• sinking a few with Symmo
• powdering his nose with Dell
• punching on with Matt Henjak
  
• sharing a glass with Greg Bird
• sharing a hotel room with Blind Freddy Fittler
  
• going for a drive with Jake Friend
• taking a wander through the Cronulla shops with Brett Seymour
• wildlife tourism with the Western Force
  
• or sharing a bun with the Sharkies

Answers on a postcard to the usual address. Which won't get there cos this is the internerd and all, but anyhoo.

Final thought: if wonderkid James O'Connor had been at the Sharks rather than the Wallabies, it wouldn't have been his over-generous willingness to share his food that would have got him into trouble with his teammates - more his likely unwillingness to share his girl with them.

(Takes until about 3:53 before she shows up in the YouTube vid above, but it's probably worth the investment of your time.)

The Doctor is OUT.