To misquote John B. Keane, a New Zealand rugby player with an inferiority complex is one that believes he is only as good as somebody else. It's always interesting to see the caveats of the contempt the denizens of NZ rugby hold the Lions tour: while they often don't want to take their tourists too seriously, it is still a pretty excellent opportunity to prove their rugby primacy. Hence why there will be reams of newspaper articles and online #content seriously dedicated to not taking the Lions too seriously.
The latest appears in today's New Zealand Herald, by Gregor Paul. Under the hugely satisfying headline "Earth Calling Self-Assured Lions", it begins with a favourite topic in New Zealand rugby: the disastrous 2005 Lions tour of their country, in which they roughly disabused their guests of their various rugby notions.
The Lions always have optimism in the days after they have picked their squad to come to New Zealand.
It's usually only once they get here, discover that it appears they have left from Venus and landed in Mars, that hope and confidence drains out of them as the true scale of their mission sinks in.
The disastrous tour of 2005 was a fascinating case study in that regard. The Lions, all hyped up as the strongest tour party to ever leave British shores, thought they were going to dismantle the All Blacks at the set-piece, knock them off their feet in the collisions and grind their way to victory with route one rugby.
It took all of two games for the Lions to find out that their plan wasn't as well considered as they had imagined.
A pedant might point out the egregious targeting of their captain at the beginning of the first test also didn't help the tourists, but let's move on. The article is quick to play down the significance of Ireland's victory over the All Blacks in Chicago last November, for fear that the Lions might be given a blueprint by the Irish performance on that fateful, DVD-shifting day.
They might find they have read too much into Ireland's Chicago victory over the All Blacks and seen things that aren't actually there.
The All Blacks, using their fourth choice lock and a flanker in their second row, were a horror show in the lineout.
They were just as bad for 50 minutes in other areas, but this doesn't confirm them as being unduly vulnerable against teams that target them in the physical and structured aspects of the game.
It merely says they played badly in the USA and that they are no different to any other test team - that if they don't front physically, they can't effectively launch their attacking game.
The article points out that this is a decent tactic - the rock upon which Warrenball is based - but it won't be enough by itself. Why? Because the All Blacks are just better. Read the whole piece on the
See Also: NZ Herald Takes Swipe At IRFU And Lambastes Jared Payne's Lions Inclusion
See Also: Watch: Munster Winger Scores Extraordinary Solo Try As They Win British & Irish Cup
