A rugby tour to New Zealand is a bittersweet pleasure for every player. There is nowhere better to test yourself but no more painful place on earth to lose. This applies every bit as much to the provincial matches as the looming Test series. Woe betide any naive Lions anticipating a low-key midweek hit-out against uninterested Kiwi opposition before the serious stuff begins.
Even a cursory glance at the 2017 itinerary induces a shiver down the spine. Starting with Wednesday’s game against the Blues in Auckland, the Lions face perhaps the toughest midweek schedule ever compiled. The Highlanders in Dunedin, the Chiefs in Hamilton and the Hurricanes in Wellington on successive Tuesday nights directly after Saturday fixtures against the Crusaders, the Maori All Blacks and New Zealand? Brutal does not even begin to describe it.
When Warren Gatland’s midweek Wales side played the Chiefs last year the home team romped to a 40-7 victory. Gatland himself was a key member of the Waikato team that thumped the 1993 Lions by 38-10. Small wonder those set to feature against the Blues at Eden Park sense a difference in intensity compared with the early stages of the 2013 tour to Australia. “You just sense it from the whole organisation,” says Conor Murray, the outstanding Irish scrum-half preparing to form a new half-back partnership with his current room-mate Dan Biggar. “There is an air around the place that there’s something bigger coming than four years ago. That’s the way it needs to be because the All Blacks are better than Australia were. I think the coaches, players and staff are all aware it’s going to be a lot tougher … it’s going to be a hell of a few weeks.”
If there is an upside it will not be long in coming: the selectors will swiftly find out who can cut it. Murray, who started the 2013 tour behind Mike Phillips in the pecking order, suspects competition for Test places will be fiercer than normal as a result. “Last time round you had a feeling of the Test team after a couple of weeks whereas I don’t think that will be the case this time. I think we’re going to push each other right to the week of the announcement of the first Test team.
“Maybe Warren and the lads have a few ideas in their heads of combinations and people they may want to play but it’s just so tight it will probably come down to who goes better in the midweek games and the weekend games leading up to the Test. There’s an air of red-hot competition which is great.”
The impressive Munster No9 is still a slim-priced favourite to make the first-choice XV, having been Ireland’s guiding light in last autumn’s victory over the All Blacks in Chicago. Strong yet dextrous, confident yet approachable, the 28-year-old has all the hallmarks of a key Test Lion but is presuming nothing: “I think it’s OK to say you want to be the Test starter, that you want to play in the Tests, because they’re the games that are remembered. But it’s going to be really tough to get into that team. I think this squad is massively talented ... the Test team you could pick could be incredible.”
Jonathan Sexton will be prominent among those hoping the fit-again Murray comes steaming out of the blocks; an all-Irish half-back pairing in the opening Test would also help save Gatland and co precious training ground time. If Owen Farrell or Biggar end up at 10 instead, an instant connection will have to be established in the most demanding of circumstances. “It’s not necessarily about looking at videos,” Murray says. “It’s just about spending time chatting with these guys, getting to understand them and how they see the game of rugby.” Sporting telepathy tends not to be plucked out of thin air.
Knowing Sexton as he does, Murray also expects plenty of straight talking on the training pitch as the tour progresses. “I was talking to Dan about it. All three fly-halves are pretty fiery and really competitive. You’ve three guys there that want to win all the time and if standards aren’t upheld they will let it be known they’re not happy. It will be interesting to see what happens. I am sure there will be a few barking orders over the next six weeks.”
There is certainly no time for Murray and his Munster team-mates Peter O’Mahony and CJ Stander to dwell on their disappointing Pro12 final defeat to Scarlets. If there were suspicions that a long, uniquely emotional season might just have caught up with them, all those unavailable for the pre-tour training camps in Wales and Ireland have been urged to set the recent past aside. “We’ve spoken about the harsh nature of this tour,” Murray says.
“For the 11 of us guys who were involved in finals it’s just been about catching up. You’re straight into looking at another goal with a group of players who hadn’t lost a final so you can’t afford to feel sorry for yourself.” For midweek dirt-trackers and Test contenders alike, there will be no respite from this Wednesday onwards.
