Henry and Lions squad have that itch

By CHIRS HEWETT

LONDON - Graham Henry, a man who knows his own mind and is unshakeable in his conviction that he understands every other mind he encounters, made three bold assertions yesterday as the 2001 Lions bade their fond farewells and packed their bags for tonight's flight to Wallaby land.

He expressed the view that his southern hemisphere background had given him an intimate working knowledge of Australian rugby; he confirmed that his fellow New Zealanders would support the Lions in this summer's series -­ "To a man, the Kiwis want to see the Australians stuffed, big time," said the coach, politely -­ and he declared that his players had successfully rediscovered their competitive "itch" over the course of their preparation week in Hampshire.

The last point was by far the most significant, for without that "itch", Henry's squad will quickly find themselves scratching around for salvation in the most ruthless sporting country on the planet ­- a nation that sympathises with losers in the way the Romans once sympathised with the early Christians.

Henry's problem is that some itches are currently bigger than others, and he has precious few games in which to achieve a degree of uniformity on the craving front.

It was noticeable at Aldershot, where the Lions sweated and snorted their way through a vigorous full-contact session overseen by the international referee Ed Morrison, that a fifth of the party avoided the rufty-tufty stuff like the plague.

Martin Johnson, the tour captain, was having none of it; neither were Lawrence Dallaglio, Phil Vickery, Mike Catt, Iain Balshaw or Jonny Wilkinson ­- pretty much the backbone of England's outstanding Six Nations side.

All could point to minor ailments and anyway, few of them are expected to feature in any serious capacity before the big game with Queensland in Brisbane a fortnight tomorrow. But the issue runs deeper than that.

At the end of the longest domestic season ever inflicted on the poor bloody infantry of the union game, the English contingent are utterly cream-crackered.

The Irish, meanwhile, are as fresh as daisies, thanks to their government's hard line on foot-and-mouth prevention.

Ronan O'Gara, for instance, was running like a thoroughbred; so too Brian O'Driscoll. The fact that their rival midfielders, Wilkinson and Catt, scarcely broke into a walk underlined the difficulty Henry faces in raising everyone to a common peak in time for the opening Test with the world champions on 30 June.

If there is any imbalance, any lack of physical or psychological unity, the Wallabies will expose it.

They will be far, far smarter than the 1997 Springboks, who contrived to lose a three-Test series to the Lions despite enjoying 75 per cent possession, 80 per cent territory and outscoring their opponents by nine tries to three.

Far from tackling the first two Tests without a goalkicker, as the Boks did four years ago, the Australians will have at least three marksmen -­ John Eales, Joe Roff and the incomparable Matthew Burke -­ who know what it is to win matches with the boot.

And unlike the agoraphobic Boks, these opponents will trust their interstellar back division to exploit the wide open spaces.

Of course, many of the 10,000 or so Lions supporters leaving these islands over the next week or so see no reason for pessimism.

"OK, so our boys are tired," they say. "All Henry has to do is get them up for two matches, or a maximum of three if the series goes to the wire in Sydney. These tours are judged on Test results. The rest is window-dressing, right?" Wrong, actually.

This may be the shortest Lions adventure since Bob Seddon led 20 British rugby frontiersmen to the Antipodes in 1888, but it is a sporting invasion, all the same.

The 1997 tour generated its own momentum ­- and successfully re-launched the Lions after a fallow period -­ on the back of mesmerising victories over Western Province, Gauteng, Natal and Free State. Four years on, there will be big non-Test nights in Perth, Townsville and Canberra, as well as Brisbane and Sydney.

As Donal Lenihan, the tour manager, said: "The Lions are all about history and mystique, and every player needs to contribute something of his own to that tradition."

The expectations are high, which is why a second division union like Western Australia is expecting a 20,000 crowd for the opening match.

Can the tourists prevail over a fresher, fitter Wallaby side who see rugby as a thinking man's contact sport, rather than a fighting man's substitute for patriotic warfare? It is possible, but not likely.

Leaving aside the front row, where the Australians are suffering from an acute shortage of Test-class props, the Lions cannot point to an area of clear-cut supremacy -­ not even at lock, where the hosts have fast-tracked a clutch of fresh-faced Super 12ers capable of keeping Eales and David Giffin as honest as ever.

While it is comforting to think that Johnson has not finished on a losing side at any level since the third Friday in October, Australia is a place where good things tend to come to a sorry end.

No British or Irish side has won there in a dozen years, and that statistic alone confirms the Lions as underdogs.

- INDEPENDENT