<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (wayner @ Aug 9 2009, 07:21 PM)
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Thingimubob @ Aug 8 2009, 10:40 AM)
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (wayner @ Aug 6 2009, 10:56 PM)
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Shouldn't the Lions be able to beat any SH team since the Lions are a supernational team with the best players from the four home nations? Can you imagine if there was a SH "Lions" team consisting of the best players from SA, Aus and NZ? Don't you think they would totally whup any other national team? Therefore the Lions have no excuse for not dominating any and all team that they play.
Has the time come where the Lions need help and, just like the Ryder Cup in golf, the Lions elgibility be expanded from GB&I to all of Europe? Italy wouldn't have added much, maybe Parise perhaps Castro, but a few of the top French players may have improved the team.[/b]
You've gotta remember that it's not easy for a team m,ade up of 4 different international teams (not to mention a hell of a lot of club sides) to quickly gel into an effective team. It's not as if the British Isles doesn't have the quality to match the SH, they proved with this tour that we can stand toe to toe with the Springboks. But tbh ading played from two more teams, who both speak entirely different languages would probably create even more difficulty in the prepartions.
The basic rule is, a team that's been playing with each other for a long time hs much more of a chance than a team that hasn't. [/b][/quote]But the Lions had a decent amount of preparation time prior to their first test - don't forget it was 21 days after their first match of the tour and they were already in SA for 5-6 days before that match, were they not? And they had some practice time before leaving as well.
That is more preparation time than national teams get for the Six Nations, is it not? It isn't like those teams stay together for six straight weeks. But they do have the advantage that many of the players play together on the national side for many years in a row.
And if familiarity helps so much then shouldn't teams like Wales and Scotland be much farther ahead than England since the bulk of their players play on one or two Magners League teams?
And I stand by my assertion that a SuperNational team like the Lions should easily vanquish any national competition. If there were a TriNations Lions team put together to tour the NH do you think the South Africans, Kiwis and Aussie would expect anything other than total domination of their opponents?
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Ah but when it comes to the Six Nations and Tri-Nations, the core of that side has usually been together for a fair few seasons. I mean the current Springboks side has more or less been together for a long time, and bar a few players like Percy Montgomery, won the World Cup in 2007. This gave them an immidiate advantage over the Lions, though that's a big part of what the Lions Tour means, seeing if the Lions can overcome the odds and win.
I see what you mean about the Lions having around a month of preparation before the 1st Test, but imo the Lions lost that test because of picking the wrong team. You just have to look at when Adam Jones came off the bench to replace Vickery, he stedied the scrum and gave the Lions a platform to work from.This platform led to tries from Tom Croft and Mike Phillips. Maybe if the Lions had more time to prepare, Geech and his coaching staff would have realised that Vickery was going to get mullered in the scrum against Beast, and that Jones wasn't.
That's a good point you have about teams like Wales and Scotland should do better as they have less ML clubs to choose from, but I guess all I can really say is that it's a completely different challenge for a Lions coach to create a side from 4 National Teams than it is for a National Coach to create a side from the clubs in that country.
I still think that the same problems would hit the SH super team, it depends a lot on how much time that team has to gel. I mean look at the Babaa's side I posted, that's not exctly a million miles off a SH Super team, bar the majority of Aussie players, a few big names like Carter, and plus a few NH players like Shane Williams. They still lost to the Aussies though becuse they didn;t have a structured game plan while the Aussies did.
You make a good arguement though mate, keep it up
