Andy Farrell, the triumphant coach of the British & Irish Lions, suggested the very idea of replacing Australia on the tour programme is “insulting”.
Both to the home team as well as the touring one, presumably. His side’s achievement should not be cheapened by the idea that their opponents this summer were undeserving of the fixture.
It is true that Australian rugby union has been in the doldrums. But that is based on very high standards in a country who have twice been world champions. It should be remembered that that is more than all of the Lions’ constituent nations combined.
They showed in winning the final Test in Sydney on Saturday that there is enough fight left in them to merit continued involvement in the Lions tour cycle.
Plus, an invitational team are always playing a dangerous game if they threaten to drop fixtures based on one bad crop.
In a sports world where everything needs to be new and jazzy and innovative – the Hundred, the Baller League, Olympic 3v3 basketball, as well as the touted breakaway rugby event, R360 – the ritual and routine of the Lions sets it apart.
Lions Tests are memorable because there are only three of them every four years. And, for the host team, that’s three every 12 years. That is a long time to stew on defeat, which is why it means so much.
This 2-1 series win in Australia was the first time the Lions have returned to a country in the professional era – meaning since 1997 – and won again. When they won there back in 2013, it had been the Lions’ first series victory in 16 years.
Having a winning record against the Wallabies does not mean a trip to Australia is not worth it.
Australian rugby might be at a low ebb. The World Cup wins in 1991 and 1999 are a long time past now, and the sport in the country has faced two decades of decline.
But they are set to host an expanded Rugby World Cup in 2027. The evidence of the final Test win in Sydney suggests they are building a side who will at least be more competitive than in the last World Cup, where they exited in the group stage for the first time.
It is a long time away when they are next due to host the Lions, and there is no guarantee that they will.
France have been touted as a new opponent for the touring side. Abdelatif Benazzi, the Moroccan-born former France lock turned administrator, has pitched for the Lions to travel to his country in future.
Are they the most deserving? What would be gained from the four nations who make up the Lions ganging up to face a team they all do every year in the Six Nations anyway?
Would a trip to France even feel like a Lions tour? As Maro Itoje, the Lions captain, said after the idea was put to him: “It needs a long-haul flight.”
Surely the most consideration should be paid to Argentina. If a new destination can be shoehorned into the Lions cycle, they should be heading to South America.
New in the professional era, at least. The Lions have been to Argentina before. Coincidentally, their last series clean sweep occurred when they played nine games there, in 1927.
Amazingly, Argentina have reached the top echelons of rugby union – in both XVs and sevens, where they have been World Series champions for two seasons running – despite being propped up by a largely amateur domestic game.
Financial powerhouses, like the British and Irish unions, apparently can barely even afford to run sevens programmes at all any more, let alone make them competitive.
And yet Argentina are peerless in the abridged format, all while climbing to No 7 in the world in XVs. They were good enough, too, to mete out the only defeat to the 2025 Lions until the final Test in Sydney.
The largely amateur status of the game there is one thing which could be held against staging a full Lions tour to Argentina. Would the midweek tour matches be competitive enough?
Well, the 2025 Lions were barely pressed in their tour matches, until the Australia sides at least teamed up with some Pasifika talent based across the ditch in New Zealand.
An Argentina tour need not be confined solely to one country. Uruguay and Chile are emerging forces in the sport, and could be worthy tour match opposition.
A South America tour would also plug straight in to the fuzzy old traditions of the Lions. A trip into uncharted territory – in the modern era, at least – while making new Lions lore off the beaten track.
Buenos Aires would be an adventure. Santiago and Montevideo also.
How to fit them in without taking away from what makes the Lions so special already is a different question altogether. But Argentina deserve to welcome the Lions.
