In exactly three months’ time, the Lions will play their first match of the 2013 tour, against the Barbarians in Hong Kong, but the Australian Rugby Union have already devalued the whole, highly anticipated event.
As the union preparing to host the cream of British and Irish rugby for the first time in 12 years, the ARU on Thursday confirmed the small-minded, short-sighted decision to keep their top players in camp for three weeks prior to the Test series.
The leading Wallabies will be prevented from playing for their Super Rugby teams in tour matches preceding the three internationals.
Small-minded: ARU chief executive Bill Pulver (fourth right) poses for the cameras alongside Wallabies coach Robbie Deans and some of the players who will not play in Lions warm-up matches More from Chris Foy... CHRIS FOY: Gatland holds breath over Lions in final showdowns with O'Driscoll among the potential casualties 23/05/13 World of Rugby: Email farce has Aussies on back foot ahead of Lions tour 16/05/13 Chris Foy: Lancaster pledges to set England's 'X-factor' backs free in Argentina 09/05/13 Chris Foy: Standby Lions face a tricky choice of resting and going off the boil... or playing and risking injury 02/05/13 CHRIS FOY COMMENT: Robshaw's omission is harsh and cruel but making Sam the leading man is a sensible move 30/04/13 Chris Foy: Jonny, hero of HQ, is set for one last hurrah with Toulon... 25/04/13 Chris Foy: It's all kicking off over Six Nations on Friday nights 18/04/13 CHRIS FOY: Fillol's 14-week spitting ban shows folly of disciplinary system 11/04/13 Chris Foy: Fans will end up paying for 2015 World Cup stadium fiasco 04/04/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVECynically, the announcement was made some time after tickets for the nine fixtures Down Under went on sale. Therefore, the Australian authorities have made a major marketing push before revealing that many of the matches will not be the gala occasions that fans would have wanted to witness.
The Lions had hoped to face the strong warm-up opposition to assist their rushed efforts to pull together a competitive Test side from the ranks of four national squads.
Instead, they face the prospect of being undercooked as 25 Wallabies will be out of the firing line from the moment the Lions arrive in Perth on June 2, with more players being withdrawn from the ‘Super’ teams a week later.
This will be the unsatisfactory scenario in a country without the depth of talent available to New Zealand and South Africa.
The ARU have made it plain that a series victory is their sole target. Their chief executive, Bill Pulver, claims the Lions will be ‘battle-hardened’, which is palpable nonsense given the calibre of sides they will surely face prior to the Tests.
The official statement was defensive - noting that All Black and Springbok players were similarly held back in 2005 and 2009, while failing to acknowledge that the latter tour was marred by low crowds for low-grade warm-up games lacking the best home players.
Once again, it is all take, take, take from a country hosting the Lions - using the visit to boost revenue and public interest, but doing nothing to reciprocate the goodwill generated.
Low-key: The warm-up matches in South Africa in 2009 failed to attract big crowdsThere must be a two-fold response from the touring team.
First, they must thrash the Wallabies to illustrate the folly of this blinkered approach, then attach strict demands when arranging future tours.
Frankly, if Australia don’t want to make the most of what should be a glorious showcase of the sport, Argentina would surely jump at the chance in 2025.
London Welsh are in real trouble. The Exiles face a hearing on Tuesday into the repeated fielding this season of an ineligible player, Kiwi scrum-half Tyson Keats.
They were already in a precarious position in the Aviva Premiership table, but this self-inflicted wound could be decisive in condemning them to relegation.
There should be a certain degree of sympathy for Welsh, who had to recruit hurriedly last summer, having been promoted from the Championship via appeal.
Blunder: Tyson Keats has been playing for London Welsh all seasonThe club identified the administrative error themselves and are co-operating fully with enquiries, yet the fact remains that such errors tend to be heavily penalised in the quest to enforce professional standards.
A heavy points sanction would lead to the sad irony that they would have effectively gone down the way they came up - courtesy of a judicial process.
Heaslip is vanishing man for LionsJamie Heaslip is the vanishing captain. A month ago, the Leinster No 8 had been named as Ireland’s new skipper for the RBS Six Nations soon after being identified by Warren Gatland as a talismanic figure in the running to lead the Lions.
How the picture has changed. Heaslip sank without trace as England won on a rainy day in Dublin, and during Ireland’s bewildering defeat at Murrayfield last Sunday, there was no doubt that it was Brian O’Driscoll calling the shots for the visitors by the end.
At this rate, Heaslip will be doing well just to make it into the Lions squad.
Off the boil: Form has eluded Jamie Heaslip so far this Six NationsThis is a familiar gripe, but the powers-that-be keep fanning the flames… Ireland prop Cian Healy this week had his appeal against a three-week ban for stamping on England’s Dan Cole upheld.
As a result, he will be free to play again after missing just one game, following a charade involving selection for Leinster, which was never going to happen but the authorities ‘bought’ anyway. What a shambles.
No wonder Italy have included suspended skipper Sergio Parisse in their squad to face England next weekend - they surely figure that he’s bound to be let off the hook on appeal.
Let-off: Healy is free to face Italy next weekend The last wordStephen Jones has decided to retire as a player at the end of this season.
The Wasps fly-half and Wales’ most-capped player deserves a memorable send-off. His Test career began in inauspicious fashion, with a 96-13 mauling at the hands of South Africa in 1998, but the 35-year-old went on to claim a century of Test caps, play his part in three Grand Slams and represent the Lions in 2005 and 2009.
A personal favourite memory is his break from defence at the Stade de France in the first of those Slam seasons, when the man who would - in his own words - ‘run like I’m carrying a fridge on my back’, looked frantically for support but found none around, so just had to keep going.
Glittering career: Jones celebrates winning at the Stade de France in 2005Another was his dexterous off-load for Rob Kearney’s scorching try in the epic Lions Test at Loftus Versfeld four years ago.
For Llanelli, Clermont, the Scarlets, Wasps, Wales and the Lions, Jones has been a fine player and fine man.
More... Fit and proper: The rest of them can’t keep up with us physically, says England star Youngs Wales legend Jones to hang up his boots and join coaching staff at Wasps in summer
