Whether Andy Farrell is the British & Irish Lions head coach on the 2029 tour of New Zealand should ultimately come down to if he wants to do it. He has earned the right to choose. Those responsible for making the decision should not be looking at any other candidate. Why would you go hunting elsewhere and try to find someone else when you already have the best coach available right in front of you?
Put simply, Farrell has delivered. He was told in no uncertain terms to deliver a first series win in 12 years and that is precisely what he has done. The Lions are closing in on a 3-0 series whitewash, something Farrell targeted from the start of the tour and that would bring about another significant slice of history.
I’ve had the privilege of working with him and I know that the players love him. Putting together an international team is hard enough but choosing from four international teams and pulling them together is all the more difficult. Farrell has provided them with clarity from the outset. They’re not England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales players – they are Lions. Fostering that culture has been one of his greatest strengths.
He makes players feel empowered, he treats them like adults and before we even talk about his tactical acumen, it is his emotional ability as a coach that makes him so outstanding. He is a force of nature and he has also handled Owen Farrell’s selection well. No one knows a player better than his dad and from the day the squad was picked, I had a strong feeling we would still be seeing Owen appear on this tour. His performance against the First Nations & Pasifika XV – staying the course for 80 minutes despite such little game time previously – and his cameo in the second Test have justified his call-up.
What really impresses me about Andy Farrell is that he keeps the job of head coach really quite simple. His remit is to win Test matches and so it’s not a surprise in the slightest to see that he has only made two changes for the clash in Sydney. You factor in certain issues – injuries, rest, recovery and where players are physically and mentally – but once you sift through that, selection becomes easier. He has parked sentiment – as seen by his decision to omit Sione Tuipulotu from the second Test in his home city – because nothing trumps picking the side that gives you the best hope of winning.
If the Lions do go on and complete the 3-0 series win there will be questions about where they rank and how they measure up against some of the best sides of yesteryear. It’s difficult to assess and it’s subjective. In the short term I prefer to celebrate the achievement and worry about putting it into context further down the line. The danger with trying to do that now is that it could end up minimising it and I don’t think that’s fair on the Lions. I don’t think we are particularly good at celebrating things sometimes; we can look for reasons to shoot achievements down.
And if the Lions play anywhere near their potential, I expect them to win again. The attitude has to be that the job is done but it is not complete. Maro Itoje, the captain, is a serial winner in a squad with plenty of them. It’s all over after Saturday, 80 minutes and then this group will never be together again. They have demonstrated their character with their comeback victory last weekend but just imagine if they play to their potential in Sydney. It’s all within their gift and it’s an amazing privilege so they won’t be short of motivation.
While I expect the Lions to wrap up the series in style, it is no foregone conclusion. I’ve been in the same position as the Wallabies. In 2009 we let ourselves down in the first Test, were much better in the second but came up short and then managed to salvage something in the third.
The series may have slipped away but you’re playing for pride. We felt like we had put so much into that tour of South Africa and hadn’t achieved the result we felt we deserved. But we had another opportunity to get something out of the series and make people feel proud. We wanted to acknowledge the effort people had made in coming to support and the Wallabies will be desperate to give something back to the Australian rugby public. They have a sense of injustice about how last weekend’s match panned out, they are always fighting for oxygen against all the other sports that dominate in Australia and they have had to deal with questions over whether the Lions should even come back in 12 years’ time. All of that gives the Wallabies plenty to fight for.
