Barbarian FC v British & Irish Lions

[TRF_heineken]

Hold on, hold on. Can I check something? We did win yesterday didn't we? 'Cos you get the idea from reading some peoples comments that we can't have won, and even if we did we certainly can't have scored a shedload of tries on the first game on tour, the first rugby for some since the end of April for some in very testing conditions.

The same could be said about the Baabaas team. a very good team on paper, but all of them play in the NH. Both teams were like fish out of water on Neutral ground in a foreign country.

Everyone expected the Lions to win this game, especially after the defeat the Baabaas had the previous week. I had the Lions to win by 45 points on Superbru. I think the ones being critical, are the ones expecting like me, that the Lions should have won by a lot more points than they did.

To the people who are being really critical:

The first match of the last tour was won 37-25 against a "Royal XV" invitational team made up of Currie Cup players, in much more forgiving conditions in front of 12,000 people.

Considering the way that team developed, I'm very happy with how this match went.
Context people, CONTEXT!

You can't really use those to teams in the same context. The Royal XV were a bunch of Vodacom Cup team players from a specific region in South Africa. They hardly had any internationals in their team. But what they did have, was cohesion as a team as they were training together for more than a month. The preparation for the previous Lions tour in SA was a very important area for SA Rugby at that time. All the teams came together and made plans to make the tour as uncompromising as possible on the pitch.

I would say we could use the same context after the Force game. that would be a much better indication of what is to come.

The Baabaas with all their NH-based players didn't really play like the SANZAR teams play now. The pace of the game was a bit on the slow side, and that will change when the Lions arrive in Oz.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

The same could be said about the Baabaas team. a very good team on paper, but all of them play in the NH. Both teams were like fish out of water on Neutral ground in a foreign country.

Everyone expected the Lions to win this game, especially after the defeat the Baabaas had the previous week. I had the Lions to win by 45 points on Superbru. I think the ones being critical, are the ones expecting like me, that the Lions should have won by a lot more points than they did.




You can't really use those to teams in the same context. The Royal XV were a bunch of Vodacom Cup team players from a specific region in South Africa. They hardly had any internationals in their team. But what they did have, was cohesion as a team as they were training together for more than a month. The preparation for the previous Lions tour in SA was a very important area for SA Rugby at that time. All the teams came together and made plans to make the tour as uncompromising as possible on the pitch.

I would say we could use the same context after the Force game. that would be a much better indication of what is to come.

The Baabaas with all their NH-based players didn't really play like the SANZAR teams play now. The pace of the game was a bit on the slow side, and that will change when the Lions arrive in Oz.

The pace of that game was slow for NH sides as well. That game was played in stupid conditions because it was played where the sponsors are based to get a bit more money out of the tour.

The starting team gelled quite well due to the fact that they had been together a few weeks and it would have been better if Andy Farrell hadn't brought his son on a family holiday. When players from Leinster and Leicester were brought on it was a bit messier, they had only been part of the squad since Monday. I reckon the Lions will have another slow start vs the Force but eventually win and kick on from there to eventually win the test series.