It's the same Graham Henry, the one who was so horrible that he was a Wilkinson-Thrown Interception pass and one line out at the end of the 3rd test away from winning the series. Good thing the English Players moaning paid off and they got the coach they wanted all along in 2005... how did that turn out again?[/b]
What are
you on about? The English players didn't moan. If they did, the Scots, Welsh and Irish fans wouldn't stop talking about it for more than a decade. I haven't heard any moaning from my fellow home nations fans so this is yet another piece of Kiwi propaganda.
In the end, lets be blunt: Henry tried his best but he got given a rough deal because of how the Lions is organised and run...which brings me onto...
What are you on about? Henry didn't have "years and years" together with his squad of players, he had 12 months (he was only appointed in 2004) which he spent experimenting with and had to rethink his whole coaching plan after the failure of the flat backline - The Team which took on the Lions from 2005 had some major changes from the team Henry used for the Bulk of 2004. And in turn that 2004 team had major changes from the team Mitchell used in 2003.
[/b]
What do you mean, "what are you on about"?! I was simply explaining why we seem to send the Lions out with their proverbial cricket bats broken in half (to quote Lord Howe). But even then, by trying to explain away the fact that possibly, just possibly, even the best of coaches (i.e. Henry as Lions coach) are indeed
fallible all you've done is added weight to my argument about how raw a deal the Lions Coaches get,
period.
You don't actually get my point. The All Blacks might have had different coaches but they did play together in one form or another in consecutive years. Yes some new players might have come in for 2005, but those players had probably played together the New Zealand Maoris, etc. Also, the players in New Zealand are at the call of the national coach whoever it may be. If he wants to do a 60 day straight training camp to stamp down his authority, he can do that because the players are centrally contracted.
The Lions don't have these luxuries.
Meanwhile, with the Lions, you're just bringing together a bunch of guys from different leagues and nations who
have never, ever, played together in their lives. One or two might have playing for Leicester maybe or in the odd charity game but on the whole, the English guys haven't played with the Welsh guys who haven't played with the Scottish guys who haven't played with the Irish guys!
Sure bulks of the players might be British or Irish or whatever, but then you have another problem. This national bloc have to integrate and work with the players of the other three nations otherwise it won't work and because all four nations have different playing styles, quirks etc (England with forward power, Wales with speed & flair with Ireland & Scotland mixing the two) its very hard to do that. This is especially true when the clock is ticking and the players have their own club and national commitments.
In the end Ripper, no matter how hard you try, you can't compare the two. Are you seriously saying that the All Blacks in 2004 were as disorganised, green and rushed together as the Lions were? Come off it mate.
In the Lions will always have it harder, not because of any dark and dirty tricks played by the host nation, but because we seem to insist on hiring a coach and choosing a squad so close to the tour! In order to make Lions tours worthwhile, we really should name a coach at least two years before the actual tour.
