David Leggat: Over-saturated, underwhelmed

As the Lions loom on the horizon with this week's naming of Sir Clive Woodward's armada, a couple of thoughts occurred.

The Herald is preparing a series of publications on past Lions tours as well as a thorough guide to this year's event.

In the course of poking back in picture files, books and magazines of earlier years, it brought back memories of the effect those tours - and others, by the Springboks - had on the New Zealand public.

Now without wanting to tumble into a vat of nostalgia, it's as plain as the laces on the old heavy, mud-encased leather balls that times have changed.

Remember when schools would attach themselves to a player, follow his progress through the tour, prepare scrapbooks and, in some cases, present them to that player when he visited the school or before he flew home?

Now they might send him an email.

There was a time when goggle-eyed kids could stand beside a Lion or Springbok, get a picture, or an autograph on a treasured scrap of paper, maybe have a brief chat.

Now it'll be a simple case of pxt-ing him.

Pre-television days heightened the mystique of these players, such as Jackie Kyle of the 1950 tourists. Or Peter Jackson from 1959. Or Mike Gibson from 1966 and 1971, and Barry John of 1971.

Now, at the touch of a button, you can see what these players look like, how tall they are, where they went to school and what they like for breakfast.

How do fans, young and not so young, form an attachment with 44 players? How do they remember all those names? Answers, respectively: with difficulty and they won't.

Teams used to roll into provincial New Zealand two or three days before a match, do the right thing in terms of the public duties, visit a school or three.

So how do you feel an affinity for a group who might turn up a day or two beforehand, and presumably will spend most of the time either cosseted in their hotel or doing closed training sessions or group activities?

Now we're neck-deep in the modern computerised, gadgetised, whizzbang age which long ago removed any semblance of that romance or mystery of those strangers from far-off rugby lands, and turned young eyes on to Gameboy or Playstation. You get the picture? Watch the Lions? Nah, I'll stick to Grand Theft Auto thanks.

What will the Lions' attitude be?

They're professionals. Their job is to win the series. How will they entertain themselves? They used to do the mud pools. Now, presumably, it'll be bungy jumping - provided the tour's insurers either approve or don't find out.

Being humans, some will have a belting time, others will be wishing they were home before the halfway stage of the tour.

It's quite possible players won't clap eyes on some of their team-mates for the duration of the tour, given the 22-22 A and B split that's expected to happen.

So while one lot are whizzing around the Shotover River the others are studying how many times a bloke swivels to his left inside his own 22 in the right-hand third of the field.

Hopefully, the management will have the sense to make sure the players get out and about.

It's going to be hard enough preventing rifts and cliques developing among a body of people this size as it is without throwing in a dose of cabin fever as well.

Woodward's a clever operator - he'll need to be to make this work.

His bottom line is winning the series. And this being the professional age, you suspect all else will fade into irrelevancy if that is achieved.