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The Guardian
2 days ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
Freeman and Van der Merwe miss chance to make impression in tough Lions opener
Swag is a word more common in the US than in this corner of the world. It's a made-to-measure term for athletes with attitude as well as talent; a bit of showmanship to go with the substance. It helps sell the product. When we think of the Lions we like the idea of a bit of swag to go with the occasional success. Scott Gibbs for example, on the 1997 winning tour to South Africa, the trip that rescued the idea of four countries merging into one and still having a relevance in the newly professionalised game. Or Brian O'Driscoll's stunning impact on his first tour, in Australia in 2001. George North did the same thing in the same country in 2013. So this opener was the first audition of who might put their hand up in Australia 2025. On the basis of his exploits on this pitch with Northampton Saints against Leinster in the Champions Cup semi-final last month you had to consider Tommy Freeman before the stalls even opened. This game was only 10 minutes old when his mate Fin Smith cross-kicked perfectly to him, 10 metres from the Argentina line, only for Ignacio Mendy to intercept the ball brilliantly in mid- air. Otherwise Freeman could have lodged a claim that the north-east corner of Lansdowne Road should have a plaque with his name on it. Two of his three touchdowns against Leinster came on that little patch of land. The gate to that corner was closed to him thereafter. One of the issues with modern Lions tours is that every minute of game time is one where you have to live your most productive life, for everything up to the first Test is about making the cut for that Test. Sometimes players force stuff. England's wing might want to relive at least one of his offloads, and reshape it more conservatively. He will have lost a night's sleep too over spilling a ball he should have held as the Lions came around the final bend still a few points off the pace, but he finished the night well ahead. Freeman's England teammates, the Smiths, were not quite on the same track. The idea of Marcus as full-back is weighed down with risk, either defending in the air or against bigger men on the ground. It negates all the good stuff he brings in attack. Fin is a different story, though. There was a moment in the first half where he was asked to cover the ground quickly to collect a Puma punt that was certain to involve full-on frontal contact: the sort that might end your participation. He didn't blink. When all the other bits of your game are very good, and you layer on that level of bravery, it's a step towards being part of the bigger picture. In the battle for the keys to No 10 it was a very good night for him. Not so Duhan van der Merwe. When the wing was replaced by Mack Hansen for the final quarter the timing looked unfortunate. Surely it was planned, but hardly intended to follow a brilliant try for Santiago Cordero that started with Van der Merwe losing an aerial challenge. As the home crowd roared their approval at the arrival of Hansen, one of Andy Farrell's favourite players, it must have felt like a long walk for Van der Merwe. All night he looked like a man waiting for the right cards to be dealt only to constantly end up with bum hands. Lions tours demand the ability to make the most of what comes your way, and Scotland's wing was well short. Sign up to The Breakdown The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed after newsletter promotion He is unlikely to feature on our swag list either way, but Tadhg Furlong is still very much a contender. All season Ireland's tighthead has been getting on the wrong bus, and getting off at the next stop. To have arrived at this point in one piece is an achievement. So a 20-minute spin was about right, but he made it the busiest 20 minutes he has put together in quite a while. He went off for a head injury assessment with the game slipping into its 81st minute, but had sufficient clarity of thought to stop replacement Finlay Bealham – another man who will be happy with his game – to impart some information that was relevant to how the Lions might claw the game back. Whatever it was, it probably needed more time. A bit like the Lions. The award for swagman is up for grabs.
Irish Times
30-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Rugby seasons just keep going, but to what end?
During a chance meeting recently with a former international rugby referee, one of his first comments about the game he officiated for many years was: 'I'm all rugby'd out.' Whether that was from the emotional toll of watching Leinster badly fall away from the Champions Cup or the fact that by late May two competitions were still running, he didn't say. But his point was well made. This 2025 rugby season has a never-ending feel to it, just as the 2024 season did. Both Leinster and Munster are still involved and if they win their next two matches, the quarter-final and semi-final of the United Rugby Championship (URC), they play the Grand Final on June 14th. READ MORE The teams kicked off the league on September 20th last year after preseason matches. The inaugural Celtic League in the 2000-01 season began on the weekend of August 17th and was completed by December 15th when Leinster beat Munster in front of 30,000 in Lansdowne Road. The following year the league final was in February, when Munster beat Neath in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. In its third year, the first following the formation of the five regional rugby sides in Wales, it was further elongated. Having previously been played as a pool stage followed by knockout rounds, it was re-engineered into a typical league system, based on home and away games only. That season the league began in September and was won by the Llanelli Scarlets when they beat Ulster in the last match on May 14th. By then the professional game was up and running and clubs needed income to pay their players. More attractive matches and a longer season was a sure way of generating income and rugby got what it has now, a mid-June final followed by an assortment of tours involving Ireland and Lions players as well as a women's World Cup in the UK, where the Irish team will play at least three pool matches against New Zealand, Japan and Spain. Leinster's Jordie Barrett signs autographs, a tiny part of his social load. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho Last year in July the Irish men's squad was in South Africa preparing for a Test series against the world champions more than a year after their World Cup training camp began and 11 months since they opened their warm-up World Cup campaign against Italy at the Aviva Stadium. For Irish fullback Hugo Keenan last season was longer than any before. Having entered Ireland's training camp on June 18th, 2023, he finished playing in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris with the now defunct Irish Sevens team on July 27th. When the URC final is complete, if any of the 15 Irish players selected for the Lions by Andy Farrell are playing, they can look forward to quickly convening for a match against Argentina five days later in the Aviva Stadium to mark the beginning of the summer tour. It is the first time a Lions team will play in Ireland, which should ensure that any Irish player who competes in the URC final will want to perform in front of a home crowd. Irish player involvement would also generate more local interest. The Lions then travel to Optus Stadium in Perth in Western Australia to begin the nine-match tour through Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane again, Melbourne and Sydney. The tour will include three Test matches against Australia towards the end, with the final match against the Wallabies taking place on August 2nd in Sydney's Stadium Australia. While that is happening, the Irish team − shorn of its Lions players − will play two summer tour matches against Georgia and Portugal under interim head coach Paul O'Connell. First up on July 5th Ireland will play Georgia in Tblisi. The Georgians are 11th in the World Rugby rankings. A week later Ireland travel to Lisbon to face 18th-ranked Portugal. The British and Irish Lions will play in Ireland for the first time this year. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho Given the workloads you would wonder if rugby could learn from a comparable sport − American football. Through a 2025 collective bargaining agreement, the NFL announced a nine-week off season programme conducted in three phases. The first two weeks of the programme is limited to meetings, strength and conditioning, and physical rehabilitation. The second phase, which is three weeks long, involves on-field workouts that may include individual or group instruction and drills. Phase three is a four-week bloc in which teams may conduct a total of 10 days of live practice, where no contact is permitted. The regular season begins on the weekend following the first Monday of September and ends in early January, after which the season's playoffs begin, culminating in the Super Bowl in February. There has been a lot said and written about long seasons posing significant challenges for rugby players, impacting their physical and cognitive performance and increasing injury risk. But exactly how long a season should be has not been precisely defined and, anyway, in Irish rugby some players have longer seasons than others. In 2016 an International Olympic Committee scientific paper also showed that player loads are not just training and playing matches but include psychological load, travel loads, social and social media loads. The non-physical loads are difficult to measure but are another factor in determining what is appropriate. Come August, when this season finally ends, it may or may not have been too long. But by then it will not just be the former international referee who will be all 'rugby'd out'.
