Graham Price: I expect the Lions to win Down Under but Farrell has immediate difficulties

Wales Online

3 days ago

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So, the Lions kicked off with a defeat to Argentina and I've got to be honest if I was still a player I wouldn't have been keen to play in that game, because the thought of having a tour-ending injury in Dublin would have been very off-putting.
I had the feeling that it may have been weighing on the minds of the players at the start of Friday's game and was, subsequently, influential in the loss to Argentina. To be perfectly honest, it wasn't the best team Argentina could have mustered either.
Of course, it was an important game for the Lions and every player who took the field can be proud of the fact they are now British & Irish Lions, but the tour doesn't really start until you set foot on foreign soil and that begins in Perth against the Western Force this Saturday.
'Expect the unexpected during the Lions tour' – that's the advice I'd give to any player going to Australia. Unforeseen obstacles will pop up and there will be crucial moments where the series could be decided.
The Argentina result was a setback.
It was the first opportunity for the players to stake a claim for that spot in the Test team.
Some, such as Ellis Genge, Finlay Bealham and from a Welsh perspective Tomos Williams took the opportunity well but most of the team didn't.
The last time the Lions lost the first game on tour was in 1971. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.
Andy Farrell now has the task of getting the show back on the road again and that starts on Saturday against Western Force, in Perth.
There is no doubt he will have planned meticulously for the 10 matches, especially the all-important three Tests.
He has made a lot of changes for the Force clash, probably because he wants to give an opportunity to as many players as possible to stake a claim.
But, unfortunately, this could lead to similar difficulties with the team as a whole and combinations not clicking.
Most of the tour party are based on the Irish team and coaches so I would assume Farrell would want to base his team and strategy on what he knows best.
The simplest way to achieve this would be to select a team mostly based on the Irish players.
I believe his Test team will, ultimately, be based on the best of the rest being able to integrate with this strategy.
I'm tipping the Lions to win a first Test series since beating Australia 12 years ago but I stress it will not be easy.
It will be all about which team takes its chances and is going to be fascinating.
Now, you will have to forgive me for wanting to reminisce. It's an age thing. My first tour with the Lions was to New Zealand in 1977.
With time added on for the Queen's Golden Jubilee game against the Barbarians, it became more like a four-month tour.
It was certainly long enough for my two daughters, Joanne and Louise, to forget who I was!
When I embarked on my last tour in 1983, my son Owen was a babe in arms but by the time I returned two and a half months later he was walking.
I was amazed to hear the stories of my predecessors of their seven-month tours which took in six weeks in Australia before they even arrived in New Zealand.
It took us 27 hours to fly from Heathrow to Auckland in 1977. However, the 1959 Lions my club coach Ray Prosser took part in took three days to travel to Australia.
Their tour started over a month before the end of the 58/59 season and they returned home a month after the start of the following season.
Their predecessors would have travelled by boat.
In the early hours of the morning I would tune in my little transistor radio to listen to the match commentary of the 1966 Test matches.
That was only if the telecommunications satellite just happened to be in the right position at the time. Nowadays you are able to watch the games on your mobile phone.
Of the 12 Tests I had the privilege of playing in for the Lions, we could have won about 10 of them had we taken our chances.
But who would have thought Phil Bennett, of all players, would have missed a kick to touch to allow New Zealand to come back at us to score the try that won the 1977 series for them.
You've only got to look at the tour of Australia, in 2001, for evidence of misfortune.
The Lions were in command in the second Test but their best player, flanker Richard Hill, suffered a tour-ending injury just before half-time and he was out of the series.
It was the turning point in the game and the Lions went to the dogs.
The Wallabies came back to level matters and then go on to win the decider. Four years later in New Zealand the unfortunate shoulder injury captain Brian O'Driscoll suffered in the first minute of the opening Test effectively ended it as a contest.
There will be injuries in Australia and it could be that somebody who is not even in coach Farrell's original selection may feature prominently in the Test series.
Players react in different ways to being a Lion.
It's the pinnacle of their career that some revel in and, subsequently, grow in stature while others can retreat into a shell.
I remember being on the tour of New Zealand in 1977 when England lock Bill Beaumont arrived as a replacement. He was expected to merely make up the numbers but he grabbed his chance with eager hands and immediately forced his way into the Test team.
Martin Johnson was another to arrive late, in New Zealand in 1993, and he made the Tests.
It was the same with Ryan Jones against the All Blacks in 2005. Both Beaumont and Johnson went on to captain the Lions.
From the perspective of an ex-front-row forward, I'm happy with the pack Farrell will be able to put on the pitch and I'm confident in the scrummaging ability of the first and second-choice props he has at his disposal.
Australia may have improved at the scrum but they are not going to be as strong as the Lions in that department.
Having said that, nobody expected Tendai Mtawarira, the 'Beast' as he was known, to get the better of Phil Vickery in the first Test in 2009.
The 'Beast' was a bit of a misnomer as he was considered to be a soft touch in the scrum. Vickery certainly had a bad day at the office on that occasion. Get the latest breaking Welsh rugby news stories sent straight to your inbox with our FREE daily newsletter. Sign up here.
He was replaced by Adam Jones who did a much better job of taming the 'Beast'.
However, the damage was done and, as a result, the Lions lost the game and were on the back-foot for the rest of the series against the Springboks and never recovered.
So you've always got to be prepared to deal with these issues when least expected.