Springboks to play British & Irish Lions in Australia?

In an intriguing development regarding the scheduled 2021 British & Irish Lions tour, Rugby Australia has offered to host the spectacle between the Lions and the World Champion Springboks on Australian soil.

The tour is currently in doubt as far as South Africa’s hosting is concerned due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, Australia’s management of the virus has proved extremely effective, rendering them in a position to possibly manage the tour.

Before this suggestion, the options for the tour were as follows: (1) cancellation of the tour in its entirety; (2) playing in empty stadiums; (3) playing the competition in Britain and Ireland; (4) postponing the tour to South Africa to 2022.

Australia has large South African and British expat communities who would lap up the opportunity to see the Boks take on the Lions. Rugby Australia (RA) chairman, Hamish McLennan, has said that possibly two of the tests would be played in Perth, a city which many South Africans call home.

McLennan has proposed that the Springboks and Lions would share the revenue generated by the tour with RA taking just enough to cover costs.

There is even a suggestion that the Lions could play their warm-up games against some of the same South African provincial teams they are scheduled to meet in South Africa, as well as some Australian domestic opposition.

At present, it is not planned that the Wallabies would be involved, however, the opportunity for creativity is ever-present.

"There will need to be a few warm-up games and the latest idea is to form a Wallabies-France Barbarians team for the Lions to play," McLennan said.

"We just want to keep building interest and (hosting the tour) would be great for the game and something like a Barbarians game would be quite popular.

"I just said (to Roux) that if it becomes impossible to host it (in South Africa) we'd be interested," McLennan said.

"We hosted the Rugby Championship, which became the Tri-Nations and ended up being a fantastic tournament so we've proved it's possible."