New rugby union season makes Lions an ‘impossible challenge’, warns Spencer

John Spencer, manager of the British & Irish Lions in New Zealand last year, said he was “very concerned” about the future of one of the game’s most iconic brands after changes to the domestic rugby calendar, as future tours will be trimmed to eight games with no training week for the full squad before they fly out.

Spencer said: “Who is going to want to take on the task of coaching the Lions on what is going to be a virtually impossible challenge? Are players at the end of a long season going to be prepared to risk reputational damage given the lack of time to prepare?”

The remodelled English domestic season means the 2021 Lions tour has been cut from six weeks to five and 10 matches to eight. Reducing the number by two means it will be hard for coaches to give every player in the squad a chance to play in one of the first three warm-up matches and compete for a place in the team for the first Test. With no midweek game between the first two matches of a series, a tour will end for many players halfway through.

“This will damage the ethos of the Lions,” said Spencer, who as an England centre was involved on the only other tour to New Zealand that did not end in a series defeat, in 1971. “This has come about from the debate over player welfare, but what it shows is that player welfare is only given lip service if money is involved.

“Talk to Lions past and present and they will tell you, to a man, what going on a tour means. I fear that some of the people making decisions have no concept of that and I find what is happening very concerning. There are enough people to safeguard the future of the Lions and we have to fight to the end for it because it is so important, not just to the game in Britain and Ireland – what other team is followed out by 30,000 people? – but to the major southern hemisphere nations whose finances would take a huge hit if they no longer hosted a tour.”

The matter came to a head this week when details of the English season from 2019-20 were announced following the tweak in the global calendar that will push June tours into July. The final of the Premiership in 2021 will be on 26 June, one week before the Lions tour of South Africa starts. The Pro14 has yet to announce its schedule.

“It means players who are involved in the English final will join the Lions for the farewell dinner the following day and then fly out having played no part in training,” Spencer said. “By not bringing the final forward by a week, something we paid the Premiership to do in 2009 only for them to refuse in 2013, along with the Welsh regions, there is a risk that some English players will not be selected.

“A Lions tour is about far more than rugby. You do a lot of missionary work, visiting schools, hospitals, local clubs and the like. It makes it unique in the modern game and provides a player with an experience he would otherwise not have. And then there are the fans, the heroes as far as the players are concerned. Who has thought about them in all this?

“I remember being hauled out of a function after the second Test in Wellington and asked to speak to the thousands of Lions fans who were still in the ground singing and celebrating in the pouring rain. The hosts wanted to clean the place up. That is what we are fighting to preserve, a creed which is as important to the game now as it ever was.”

England’s head coach, Eddie Jones, is regarded as one of the candidates to coach the Lions in 2021, the year his contract with England ends. The Rugby Football Union is already rolling out a succession plan for the Australian.

“We want the best guy to take us forward and Eddie will be involved in the process,” Nigel Melville, the RFU’s professional rugby director, said. “We are looking in the Premiership and across the world and we may go for an English option who does not have international experience. It is an open book.”