Perhaps, given the composition of the squad and staff, Dublin is the only appropriate place for this British and Irish Lions summer to begin. A deep Irish brogue has been evident throughout the delivery of the tour from the moment Andy Farrell was confirmed as head coach, a record contingent of 15 familiar faces taken with him in the quadrennial assembly and much of his coaching team Dublin-drawn, too. There are heavy connections in the Wallabies camp, too, Australia head coach Joe Schmidt having laid the foundations upon which his former assistant has most impressively built.
Come matchday, the Lions will be cloaked in familiar red, but even their training kits have been green in their week in the Emerald Isle. The long lineage of this touring team is still able to break new ground with Friday night’s encounter with Argentina under the glass banks of the Aviva Stadium the first time the Lions have had an outing on Irish soil. Such encounters may only be an hors d’ouevre to the feast of rugby to follow once Farrell and his squad land down under, but these fixtures are commercially significant, and give those unable to travel to Australia a swim in the sea of red – provided they can stomach the prices for tickets, travel and lodgings in a city where a certain level of surging comes with the territory on rugby weekends like these.
There has been an undercurrent of chitter-chatter, verging on criticism, about the heavy Irish influence in Farrell’s squad, which was brushed away brusquely by assistant coach Johnny Sexton this week. “Well, Ireland have done pretty well over the last few years, having won the [Six Nations] championship last year, the grand slam the year before, so you’re probably looking over the last three years,” Sexton rather rightly said, before pointing out that their familiarity with the head coach would probably prove useful as the Lions race to get up to speed.
“They know the way Andy coaches, they know the system. It didn’t surprise me because historically, let’s say when there was a Welsh coach and the Welsh team did well, there were the majority of the Welsh team. I think the teams that performed the best in the Six Nations got selected.”
Even with a squad selected, grumbles of a parochial and patriotic nature will continue to rumble as Farrell begins the unenviable task of narrowing down Britain and Ireland’s 38 best and brightest to 23 across the seven games that precede the first Test in Brisbane on 19 July. It is much too soon for anyone, let alone the boss, to draw definitive conclusions, but those selected to take on the Pumas will want to stake an early claim in front of a capacity crowd.
There will be a few more Dubliners confined to a watching brief, of course, Farrell understandably electing not to risk those involved in securing Leinster’s United Rugby Championship (URC) triumph across the city at Croke Park six days ago – excepting Ronan Kelleher, required to back-up Luke Cowan-Dickie with workmate Dan Sheehan the only other hooking option in the squad. He will at least have a club and country chum for company: Tadhg Furlong’s return from a calf problem is most welcome, with tighthead a developing area of slight concern after Zander Fagerson’s withdrawal.
“He’s fit and ready to go," Farrell said of Furlong, with the rest of his injury concerns (Huw Jones, Jamison Gibson-Park and Hugo Keenan) all tracking well to be back available next week. “He’s trained well and as keen as everyone else to get the show on the road. There’s always one or two bumps and bruises that you’re trying to nurse – that’s the nature of rugby. We’re in good shape.”
The absence of the Leinster lot – and Premiership finalists Finn Russell, Will Stuart and Ollie Chessum, plus otherwise-engaged Top 14 semi-finalist Blair Kinghorn – made selection relatively straightforward for this opening game, yet there is nonetheless plenty of intrigue. The deployment of Tom Curry, Jac Morgan and Ben Earl replicates a tactic successfully used by England during the Six Nations, with three openside options backed up by another in Henry Pollock to ensure a pack of jackals ready to scavenge on whatever the Lions bring down. A partnership between Bundee Aki and Sione Tuipulotu, meanwhile, could yet be revisited come the Tests, with both far more than just a crash-and-bash wrecking crew, though likely to provide plenty of front-foot ball from which the Smiths, Fin and Marcus, can play their tunes.
One would not expect sweet music just yet, though. These tour curtain-raisers aren’t always the easiest watches, the Lions often still fumbling and feeling their way into things as the squad settles. The encounter with Japan four years ago is perhaps only remembered for nearly costing Warren Gatland his tour captain, Alun Wyn Jones, while the heat and humidity of Hong Kong made for an uninspiring opening half-hour against the Barbarians in 2013. There is perhaps value in a first hit-out, though: the Lions forwent a fixture of this ilk in 2017 and very nearly found a jet-lagged line-up turned over by a group of Kiwi provincial part-timers.
Perhaps the most apt comparison, though, is the 2005 encounter with Argentina in Cardiff – though Farrell will be hoping for rather better than a dreadful draw that set the tone for a disastrous tour. That Pumas side was far from full-strength but was captained by a certain Felipe Contepomi, now head coach, having been such a critical part of a remarkable rise over the last two decades.
This is something of a homecoming for the former centre, back in a fair city where he spent six years as a Leinster player. While his squad is not at full strength – bench depth is an issue, with a few key figures involved in the Top 14 or injured – there is all sorts of talent in the starting side: Julian Montoya, Juan Martin Gonzalez, Rodrigo Isgro and Santi Carreras were all among their club’s top Premiership performers last season and the classy Tomas Albornoz continues to make the No 10 shirt his own. They could well prove tricky prey.
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