THESE LIONS ARE GOING TO ROAR

Now that we don’t have any Ulster action to entertain ourselves, there are other pressing matters to attend to – mainly the British & Irish Lions tour to Australia. Although Ulster only have two representatives in the thirty-eight man squad, it is still exciting to see how the best of the British Isles fare against one of the best sides in the Southern Hemisphere.

Normally I wouldn’t be too excited by a Lions tour. We can always tell how they’re going to go – Sky will big them up and make it out like they have a chance at “creating the impossible”, only for the Tests to be a whitewash 3-0 victory to the hosts. And this year I was tempted to give up on the Lions for a completely different reason.

The omission of Rory Best from the original squad was nothing short of ridiculous. Despite his poor line-out showings for Ireland and for Ulster against Saracens, he is still the best hooker in the Northern Hemisphere by a long way (well, in my opinion anyway). You couldn’t help but feel sorry for the Ulsterman when his name wasn’t read out back at the press conference in April. Going on the Lions tour was the least he deserved.

Luckily, he got there, although he had to rely on the stupidity of Dylan Hartley to take his place on the plane. As I mentioned on Tuesday, it’s not much of a victory for Best really – being on the tour now still doesn’t disguise the fact that he wouldn’t have been there had Hartley kept his head on Saturday and not sworn at referee Wayne Barnes.

That’s all in the past though, and what matters is that Rory is on the tour, joining the other Ulster representative Tommy Bowe, who is likely to start the three tests on the wing. Despite the fact that there are only the two Ulstermen on the tour, I am very interested this year for two reasons.

Firstly, the Lions actually have a chance of winning this year. The Lions will be heading to the Land of Oz in confidence, as Australia have not been in the best of form and their national team certainly aren’t what they used to be. If the Lions can play them correctly then there’s no reason why this couldn’t be a 3-0 whitewash in the visitor’s favour.

Secondly, it fills up the time before the return of Pro12 action. There are 99 days to go until the first weekend of the 2013/14 Pro12 season, and it is one that I cannot wait for. Luckily, the Lions tour takes up to the start of July and will provide us with plenty of rugby action while we wait for September to roll round again.

This weekend the Lions take on the Barbarians – a touring side made up of many players from different European clubs, including our own Jared Payne who will start at full-back. Barbarians tests are never really taken that seriously, and this will probably be an easy match to start the tour, although the sweltering heat of Hong Kong won’t make it a walk in the park. They need to get off to a winning start, no matter what the cost, and they should do against the ramshackle Baa-Baas who have already been hammered by England.

In the words of yet another cringey Sky advert for the tour, “This year, these Lions are going to roar!” That starts this weekend in Hong Kong…

British & Irish Lions vs. Barbarians

Saturday 1^st June, 12:30

Hong Kong Stadium, Hong Kong

Warm-up match

BRITISH & IRISH LIONS

15. Stuart Hogg (Scotland), 14. Alex Cuthbert (Wales), 13. Jonathan Davies (Wales), 12. Jamie Roberts (Wales), 11. Sean Maitland (Scotland), 10. Owen Farrell (England), 9. Mike Phillips (Wales); 1. Mako Vunipola (England), 2. Richard Hibbard (Wales), 3. Adam Jones (Wales), 4. Richie Gray (Scotland), 5. Paul O’Connell (captain, Ireland), 6. Dan Lydiate (Wales), 7. Justin Tipuric (Wales), 8. Toby Faletau (Wales).

16. Tom Youngs (England), 17. Cian Healy (Ireland), 18. Matt Stevens (England), 19. Alun-Wyn Jones (Wales), 20. Jamie Heaslip (Ireland), 21. Conor Murray (Ireland), 22. Jonathan Sexton (Ireland), 23. George North (Wales).

BARBARIANS

15. Jared Payne (Ulster), 14. Joe Rokocoko (Bayonne), 13. Elliot Daly (London Wasps), 12. Casey Laulala (Munster), 11. Taku Ngwenya (Biarritz), 10. Nick Evans (Harlequins), 9. Dmitri Yachvili (Biarritz); 1. Paul James (Bath), 2. Schalk Brits (Saracens), 3. Martin Castrogiovanni (Leicester), 4. Marco Wentzel (London Wasps), 5. Dean Mumm (Exeter), 6. Samu Manoa (Northampton), 7. Sam Jones (London Wasps), 8. Sergio Parisse (captain, Stade Francais).

16. Leonardo Ghiraldini (Treviso), 17. Duncan Jones (Ospreys), 18. Jim Hamilton (Gloucester), 19. Imanol Harinordoquy (Biarritz), 20. Andrea Lo Cicero (Racing Metro), 21. Kahn Fotuali’i (Ospreys), 22. James Hook (Perpignan), 23. Mike Tindall (Gloucester).

Referee: Steve Walsh (Australia)

Assistant Referees: Lourens van der Merwe (South Africa), Angus Gardner (Australia)

TMO: Matt Goddard (Australia)