SPECTATOR SPORT
Be your own men
Frank Keating
THIS weekend represents a final chance for a player to push for a place on the British Lions' rugby union tour to New Zealand this summer. Like an eve-of-poll party political broadcast, one appealing late plea has often done the trick and won the vote. To be sure, only a fortnight ago, before England played Scotland, nobody was giving Stuart Barnes an earthly as a Lion — he had been 23 times on the replacements' bench and had never before even started a 5-Nations championship match. But one scintillating performance and he is (deservedly) everyone's first choice to be the Lions' senior fly-half in the playmaker's No. 10 jersey.
But what if the cheeky, chubby little fel- low messes it up totally this weekend in Dublin? And what if the newly heartened Irish forwards start mixing it like billy-a and play the English off the park? Might, then, the Lions go for the likes of Galwey, Robin- son, Popplewell and O'Hara, instead of England's 'certainties', Probyn, Dooley, Teague and Winterbottom? We shall see. The Lions have of necessity regularly cho- sen two or three 'utility' all-rounders who can slot in when the bones begin to be bro- ken on tour. A couple of months ago I wagered that these three would be Hunter, of England, and Rayer and Clement, of Wales. I think I've lost my money already. Sad, too, since such a trio will be much missed come June, I fancy.
Although Barnes is 'everybody's' fly-half, the rotten injury to Scotland's Chalmers at Twickenham should ensure that England's longtime 'fly', Andrew, will make the trip with his Anglo rival. There are Lions prece- dents for compatriots vying for the pivotal position in New Zealand. In 1977, they took the two Welshmen, Bennett and Bevan. Sixty years ago, on the very first so- called 'Lions' tour of 1930, the splendid Old Millhillian, Roger Spong, had the Old Amplefordian and England one-cap won- der, Thomas Knowles, as his deputy at fly- half.
Last year, in this corner, I mentioned in a throwaway line how the captain of that first Lions side, F.D. Prentice of Leicester, had been casually nominated by the manager, the RFU's Bim Baxter, the afternoon before they sailed from Southampton 'Look here, Doug, I think you'd better skip- per this lot, you're the eldest' (he was 33 and had been wounded at Passchendaele). I also mentioned how Twickenham had provided each man with two badges, for the blue jersey and blazer, of three passant Lions, white shorts to be bought on arrival in New Zealand. By return I was very happy to receive a letter from a devoted Spectator reader in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Brig. R.A.G. 'Bob' Prentice, F.D.'s son saying he 'still had the pair of his father's shorts, enormous baggy long ones [imagine being laden with that weight on a cold soggy day in Dunedin!], with the name of the supplier inside the shorts, "J. Paul and Co., Wanganui" '. Of the 28 in that 1930 team there were 17 Englishmen, 7 Welsh- men, 4 Irishmen, and only 1 Scot — the, in the circs, nicely named Bill Welsh, the Hawick back-row man.
The English swankpots 60 years on reck- on they might have just as overbalanced a selection for the tour party to be named next week. In which case, the Celtic fringe should certainly be looked after by naming the Scot, Gavin Hastings, as captain. Best ever coach to a Lions side, the late Welsh visionary Carwyn James, met his men for the first time in the Park Lane Hotel, Lon- don, before they set off on their triumphant trip to New Zealand in 1971. I recall it like yesterday as Carwyn said to them: 'Look here, be your own men. I don't want Irish- men to pretend to be English, or English to be Celts, or Scots to be less than Scots. You Irish must be the supreme ideologists off the field and, on it, fighters like Kilkenny cats. You English, stiffen your upper lips and simply be superior. And you Welsh, just continue to be Triple Crown aspirants in your own cocksure, bloody-minded way. Right?"Right, Carwyn,' they chorused. It was the best and happiest tour of them all.
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