Wales in danger of a Lions wipe-out
“Jac Morgan is the man most likely to preserve unbroken Welsh Lions link”
EVER since the ‘British Isles Rugby Union Team’ became the Lions 100 years ago this summer, they have adhered to one golden rule: Never go into a Test match without the Welsh. Had they been playing one this weekend, Joe Biden wouldn’t have been alone in realising that longevity has its sell-by date. Wales having lost a young First Minister rather than an ageing President, their national sport is now in acute danger of losing something older than old Joe.
Welsh rugby, of course, has known hard times but never hard enough to justify their complete wipe-out from a Lions Test XV. They have been close to it, never more so than on three occasions when they were down to one: against South Africa in Durban exactly a century ago on August 7, at Port Elizabeth on June 22, 1968 and in Christchurch on June 17, 1993.
Douglas Marsden-Jones from Swansea kept the flag flying all on his own at King’s Park, a piece of cake compared to what he had been through in the Tank Corps during The Great War. Gareth Edwards played a similarly lone hand in the late 60s as did Ieuan Evans in New Zealand 25 years later. He was the only Welsh international but not the only Welshman, the Breconshire farmer’s son Dewi Morris having made the scrum-half position his own after successive Five Nations campaigns with England.
Over their 30 tours since 1950, the Lions have placed a heavier reliance on Welsh players than their counterparts from England, Ireland and Scotland. Crunching the numbers of those who started the 78 Test matches during that period puts Wales way out ahead on 415, England a distant second with 99 fewer.
Of the 20 post-war tours made by the Lions before professionalism in 1995, Wales supplied almost 40 per cent of the Test players. They were never more bountiful than during the two most famous winning series of the post-war amateur era. Against the All Blacks in 1971, Wales averaged eight players across all four Tests. In the first they accounted for all but one of the seven positions behind the scrum – JPR Williams, Gerald Davies, John Dawes, John Bevan, Barry John and Gareth Edwards. Mike Gibson, a Belfast solicitor widely acclaimed as the finest threequarter of his generation, was the one exception.
The Welsh formed another majority throughout the unbeaten series against the Springboks three years later. Overall they have provided the most Lions in every position except hooker and second row where they have been out-numbered by England.
A year out from their next tour, the Lions know they will be all the weaker for Wales being in such a chaotic state of disrepair. The one blessing is that Australia, their hosts at the end of next season, are mired in a not dissimilar state.
After last year’s Six Nations when Wales won the wooden spoon decider against Italy in Rome, Warren Gatland gave his thoughts on the Lions in his newspaper column headlined: ‘My 23-man Lions squad and why no Wales players are in it right now.’
“If I was to pick a Lions side next week I would not have any of my Wales players in the 23,’’ Gatland wrote. “It is simply a reflection of where we are as a team right now.’’
Fourteen months later, nothing has changed except that Wales are in the throes of their longest losing Test run for 21 years. The player most likely to preserve the Welsh record of ever-presence in Australia next June, Jac Morgan, has been missing in Test action for more than 15 months.
In recent weeks two other Welsh forwards, Dewi Lake and Aaron Wainwright, ensured their names feature somewhere on head coach Andy Farrell’s long list for the tour. Making the trip as a Lion is one thing; making the Test XV is something else. To be the starting hooker, Lake, outstanding again in Brisbane, would have to muscle his way past Dan Sheehan, Ronan Kelleher, Jamie George and Theo Dan. Wainwright, as formidable in the first match against the Wallabies as Lake had been in the previous one against the Springboks, is up against Ben Earl, Caelan Doris, the probable tour captain, and his Irish compatriot Jack Conan.
Had the Lions been playing this weekend instead of this time next year, the contenders could be divided into three teams:
Lions 1: Hugo Keenan; Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, Huw Jones, Sione Tuipulotu, James Lowe; Owen Farrell, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, Tadhg Beirne, Joe McCarthy, Chandler Cunningham-South, Tom Curry, Caelan Doris.
Lions 2: Blair Kinghorn; Tommy Freeman, Garry Ringrose, Bundee Aki, Duhan van der Merwe; Finn Russell, Alex Mitchell; Pierre Schoeman/Ben Obano, Dewi Lake, Zander Fagerson, Maro Itoje, Ryan Baird, Courtney Lawes, Jack Willis, Ben Earl.
Lions 3: Ciaran Frawley; Ollie Sleightolme, Henry Slade, Ollie Lawrence, Rio Dyer; Marcus Smith, Conor Murray; Gareth Thomas, Jamie George, Finlay Bealham, James Ryan, George Martin, Jack Dempsey, Sam Underhill, Aaron Wainwright.
The vagaries of form and the cruel finger of fate will ensure a great deal changes between now and then. If Archie Griffin continues where he left off against Wallabies, who’s to say the Welsh tighthead won’t be back in his native Australia next year as a Lion?
And then there are those due back in the new season from long-term injury, the Grand Slam trio of Mack Hansen, Gareth Anscombe and Taulupe Faletau, Darcy Graham and Jonny Gray from Scotland plus the one most likely to preserve the unbroken Welsh link with the Lions, Jac Morgan.