wattWhat is the best measure of success on the British and Irish Lions Tour? At Andy Farrell’s inaugural press conference on Thursday, the three men in the top seats gave their answers. For Farrell, it’s all about scoring runs in the Test series. The rest, the warm-up tests and the tour, are just part of the preparation.
“It’s about success,” he said over and over again. The rest, which he describes as “the rugby brand” and “all those parts,” is someone else’s business. Farrell’s aim is to win, as he has been since making his rugby league debut for Wigan in 1991.
As Lions chairman Ieuan Evans said, “That hunger, that determination to push the boundaries” seemed to “seep out of Andy’s every pore”. Farrell is a man with a heart of stone, and listening to him talk you’re convinced he’s in good hands with his business. He is not interested in questions about how congested the schedule is, whether he has enough time to work, whether he is worried about being able to select players from France’s top 14 and whether he is confident that the team is ready. First test. He said the Lions tour hinged on your “ability” to win. It’s that simple.
“You know, not too long ago, teams were competing for five trophies and the number of games they had backlogged compared to what we have now is staggering,” he said. “Did they complain? They didn’t complain. Because that’s the way it is. Things have changed since then and people can have excuses or complain, but that’s touring in its purest form and to me, that’s what touring should be Yes. There’s no excuse not to be ready for the first Test match.”
If the Lions do lose, then, “If you can’t get up off the floor, you’re the wrong personality type.”
There’s also Lions chief executive Ben Calveley, who has worked at Sport England, the Six Nations and the Rugby Football Union. Calvelli can’t help but think of the Lions as “property” rather than a team. He seemed very excited about the deal they might have struck for their next behind-the-scenes tour documentary. With the release of the Six Nations documentary on Netflix on Monday, interest in this type of content is at an all-time high. As Calvelli pointed out, the Lions have been doing this since 1997. “We wanted to do something in ’25 that would bring fans as close to the action as possible.”
He said it was unclear what form the documentary would take. “But the key for us is that we don’t want to do the same thing as the rest of the sports industry or just repeat what we’ve done on previous tours.”
Calvelli’s pitch for the streaming service is that the Lions “have access to a part of the sports-loving public that other sports organizations can’t, and we have to use that to grow the game.” By his measure, the 2021 Tour of South Africa, held at the height of the pandemic, was a victory as “we saw record numbers of virtual fan engagements”.
Finally there’s Evans, whose career spans three Lions tours in both the amateur and professional eras, who understands better than Calverley, and perhaps better than Farrell, that it’s not just the numbers that matter, whether they are or not. It’s the Lions who won those three Test matches, or the one with a pound sign in front and a lowercase “m” at the end. The Lions need to win and make money from winning to survive, but they don’t exist to do either of those things. The Lions journey is about hearts, minds and good times. It’s a great combination of games.
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Evans spoke about performance and the need to win Tests from a human perspective, having won two games in the series he was involved in before losing 2-1 to the All Blacks in the third, The All Blacks were leading 10-0 at the time. In the deciding game.
“I remember the ’93 Tour as a losing tour, a tour that we should have won, and one of the biggest disappointments of my life. I don’t want these players to look back on their tour and think: ‘ That’s a getaway’ because it’s the worst feeling in the world.”
But he also talked about the spirit behind the Lions and the idea that this is more than just another game on the pro calendar. It’s a thrill for the sport and everyone involved.
“The Lions were not a development trip, but development was a byproduct of that trip,” he said. “You come back a better player because the environment demands it. Your teammates ask you to do it, the coach asks you to do it, the opponent asks you to do it, the review asks you to do it. Whoever leaves will be better.” Come back well.”
