​10 Ways For Lions To Roar

There is no magic bullet that the lions can reach for to beat the all blacks. According to Richard Bath there are at least 10 things the visitors will have to get right if they are to win the series.

Ever since the introduction of the shorter tour in 1980, the Lions have been up against it, and in the professional era, where the Home Unions’ top players are knocking the bejesus out of each other until virtually the moment when they step onto the plane, Lions tours have got even harder.

Few doubt that there are 15 British and Irish players capable of taking on the All Blacks – the challenge is meshing a disparate tour party into the best scratch side on the planet in the three weeks between the first game in Whangarei and the first test in Auckland.

History shows that getting it right is fiendishly difficult, although there have been times when the stars have aligned, such as in South Africa in 1997.

Getting it wrong has been a more consistent narrative, with the manner of the Lions’ humiliating whitewash on their last trip to New Zealand surely the nadir.

If Warren Gatland’s tour party are to prevail for a second tour in succession – which would be the first back-to-back wins since 1971-1974 – they need to harness the 10 big lessons of Lions tours past.

1 EXPERIENCE

Each of the three Lions touring arenas throws up different challenges that require differing solutions, but when it comes to New Zealand – comfortably the most gruelling and unforgiving of the three venues – experience becomes hugely important.

As Gatland said: “Brian O’Driscoll recently said to me that, having toured New Zealand a lot, with the Lions and with Ireland, he didn’t feel it is a place to take inexperience. You go to New Zealand with players who have been there, who have been around.”