Lions’ appeal built upon their perennial underdog status

I like the idea of the Lions; all that stuff about the players of four nations forgetting their differences and forging a new collective identity against a single nation at the other side of the globe. It’s nice, in a cross-border-quango, respecting each other’s identity, hands-crossing-the-communities sort of way. It’s a veneer of course, but as veneers go, there are a lot thinner.

The Ryder Cup’s popularity for instance relies on the delusion that this country is fervently “Yer-peen” rather than being simply subsidy-sucking opportunist. So, in principle, it’s thumbs-up for the Lions.

And that’s even taking into account the near-overwhelming tang of Grade A b******t that goes along with them.

Only rugby, with its unwittingly camp "warrior spirit" soundtrack, all smouldering and soapy, could take so seriously the wearing of an otherwise unremarkable red shirt. Some of the cod-pseudo-spiritual stuff mouthed by po-faced players and management about what it means to be a Lion makes that "Endeavour" ad featuring BOD, Willie John and JPR almost a relief, were it not for the obvious relish with which everyone got into the dressing up – Kiss me, Warren.

But there's no point denying it is a veneer. Burbling underneath, just waiting to go all "Old Faithful", remain a myriad of national prejudices which continue to suckle hungrily on centuries of distrust and suspicion. Einstein famously described nationalism as the measles of mankind. And rugby in this part of the world has always been an infectiously seething petri-dish of muscular indignation, offence just aching to taken.

Provincial jealousies
Because rugger politics is determinedly local: anyone in doubt about that only has to listen to the provincial jealousies that ooze out on the back of national squad announcements here. That's hardly solely an Irish phenomenon either, so narrow national considerations are always going to be inevitable when it comes to an artificial entity like the Lions.

Already we have had endless punditry on whether or not the squad is too Welsh, a curious notion considering they are the European champions and only missed out on a Grand-Slam by sleepwalking their way through the first half against Ireland.

That our lot subsequently fell apart to the extent that they made Italy look competent still doesn't prevent the gnawing suspicion from fermenting here that Gatland may not like "us" enough, while an England sore about its captain Chris Robshaw missing out on the tour is an England itching to lash out. As for Scotland, well, everyone is allowed to like the Scots, because they're rubbish.

What's essentially admirable about the Lions is that it aspires to something beyond the usual boring flag-waving for a little while, or at least while the team wins. Winning is the most effective polish of all and a good roasting of a feeble Barbarians side in a Hong Kong stew-pot will at least keep the veneer nice and shiny until Perth on Wednesday.

After that, it is impossible to know, but maybe a frantic schedule seemingly drawn up by a drunk Bruce with a wonky Sat Nav might keep everybody too exhausted to reach for the default national button should things start to go tits-up, mate.

The team will fly of course but even flying across various vast bits of the Gabba is no piece-of-pee, and scuttling around the east coast, playing eight matches in 24 days before the final Test is the sort of diary that self-respecting professional players would normally cry "whoa" at.

Commercial exercises
The fact they haven't – although it will be a handy excuse if things go wrong – shows how the Lions magic can still exert a grip on modern professional players, despite accusations that tours these days are resolutely commercial exercises, including for those on the pitch with an eye on boosting their profile. However that's surely too severe. Only the naive don't expect professionals not to keep an eye on their percentage. But even amidst the hard sell, only those with an agenda can deny there remains something different about the Lions experience which continues to exert an undeniable grip.

What's rarely admitted though is that this grip is firmly rooted in the mundane reality that rugby in this part of the world remains strictly second-div' in comparison to the big Southern Hemisphere powers. In fact it could be argued the Lions magic is dependent on the inferiority complex implicit in having to corral the best of four teams in order to give one of the big-boy teams down-under a decent game. Everyone of the Lions panel will say wearing the red shirt is the peak of their career, and they'll mean it. But it was Jim Telfer who got to the root of why.

“They don’t respect you. They don’t rate you,” he bellowed at the last Lions winning team in 1997. And he was right.

Only the England World Cup-winning team of 2003 has consistently faced the best of the Southern Hemisphere and won out, and that team was as popular as scrum-pox in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In fact if the Lions suddenly found themselves expected to win, it's interesting to speculate if their appeal would dull, rather like how everyone got behind Europe when nobody expected them to win the Ryder Cup, only for the silliness of investing passion in something as vague as continent v continent becoming obvious once they – sorry we – started winning.

But for now; hooray for the Power of Four. No? Yeah, it is a bit Ireland's Call.