Lawrence Dallaglio: Josh van der Flier & Jack Conan are coming to the boil at the right time
Betway spoke to Rugby legend Lawrence Dallaglio ahead of the Lions tour of Australia.
The former England captain gave his thoughts on Ireland duo Josh van der Flier & Jack Conan, and talked about Ireland’s impact on the ’97 Lions tour.
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What’s the difference from playing with a set of players for England to playing with players from other countries for the Lions?
Everything about a Lions tour, if you think about it, is set up to fail. You are uniquely picked from four different countries, but maybe historically and in lots of other ways don’t necessarily like each other. You are enemies for four years and then for a brief period of time, you come together to become teammates. You fly to the other side of the world, you play against one of the teams from the southern hemisphere who are usually one of the best teams in the world, over in their country. You have a week to prepare together as a group and everything about it is quite a unique challenge.
Everyone that gets picked for the Lions is currently used to being a No. 1 selection in their own country, so all of the players start on a level playing field and then come together and try to compete for the No. 1 jersey, and it is is a challenge. That’s what makes it so special, and that’s what makes it so unique. I keep saying this, but there’s been lots of Lions tours since 1888 but there haven’t been that many that have come back victorious. Clearly, it’s not an the easy thing to do. But it is it’s still a special achievement for any player. It adds that feeling of almost special forces about it. You’re the best of the best and are in the top per cent of each of the top home unions.
I hope the players are genuinely very excited about it and all I can say, the nine-and-a-half weeks or so that I had in South Africa in 1997 as a Lions squad member was probably the best nine-and-a-half weeks that I’ve ever had in my life as a rugby player, and as an experience outside of family and childbirth and all those wonderful things. It’s probably the best nine-and-a-half weeks of your life. The rewards are there for the players.
Josh van der Flier and Jack Conan will both be pressing to get into that starting lineup. What do you make of both players?
They’re both part of the incredibly successful team in Leinster. They’ve now added to their trophy cabinet having lost the European Cup semi-final. Josh van der Flier and Jack Conan were the outstanding Irish players of the same year as well. Both of those two players maybe had slightly – and when I say slightly, you’ve got to take that with a pinch of salt – lower-profile campaigns this time around. But that was only by the high standards that they had achieved and celebrated the year before. But towards the end of this year, I thought Van der Flier had a strong semi-final and final in the Champions Cup and Jack Conan produced some of his best rugby towards the end, both of which have got selected on this year’s Lions tour. Maybe they’re coming to the boil at the right time, maybe they have hit some form at the right time, and I would expect both of them to be competing toes to toe with the likes of Jac Morgan from Wales, and Henry Pollock and Tom Curry from England. As I said, there’s a lot to be very competitive about and excited about.
From 1997, only four Irish players were in the squad, not far from how many Welsh players are in this time around. In that Test series, what do you recall of the contributions of Wood, Wallace, Davidson and Miller?
Huge. The final makeup of the Test squad is unknown as yet, but every single person that gets picked to represent the Lions is an out-and-out outstanding player. Keith Wood’s iconic performances in the Lions series in South Africa, be it in the dressing room beforehand or on the pitch during the game, he’s kicking ahead. Paul Wallace was unfancied to be our first choice for the three Test matches, but he was. Jeremy Davidson maybe picked someone like Simon Shaw at the middle of the lineout and others in fact to partner Martin Johnson. It was truly iconic. There’s a couple of Welsh this time around, there’s obviously quite a few Scotsmen so it’s what makes the Lions such a fascinating one to unpick and to put together again, because no one’s ever quite sure until the week in the Test series who’s going to be in the final makeup for that team. That’s what makes it so special.