By Paul Lewis


Has there ever been a rugby tour so steeped in PR? Regardless of the result of the test series, the 2005 Lions will be remembered for a PR campaign which often had little to do with rugby and which ultimately worked against the overall objectives of the tour.

The 2005 Lions have been successful in the way their tour harks back to the popular, lengthy and social tours of old and the way they have generally handled themselves with sportmanship and good grace. But virtually everything else has been an unmitigated disaster - and the All Blacks have not been immune either.

On the field, Sir Clive Woodward was revealed as a coach with a strategy rooted in a time warp in 2003 and the highly-flawed concept of a test team chosen on reputation, with the novel technique of not allowing them to play together to develop combinations and rhythm. It's a truism that a PR strategy can only work if the core strategy does. If not, PR professionals end up doing what they describe as "polishing the turd".

The aftermath of the test - during which Woodward and his spinmeister, Alastair Campbell, unfolded the Brian O'Driscoll/Tana Umaga/Keven Mealamu controversy - only demonstrated the real reason for Campbell's presence on tour. It's been a puzzle why the former Downing St aid is on a rugby tour - it's a bit like the Aussies taking Henry Kissinger for the Ashes.

But Campbell began a damage-limitation operation aimed at the British media and public to protect Woodward's reputation. There's no doubt that Woodward and the Lions genuinely felt they had a grievance with the Umaga incident but there is equally no doubt it was also used as an attempt to upset the All Black build-up to the second test and, primarily, to drag attention away from Woodward's appalling blunder last week. Like a 24-hour plumber, Campbell got down there in the bilges, amid the bobbing, raw sewage of this Lions tour. The damning images of Umaga, Mealamu and O'Driscoll were beamed again and again at the British media - vaguely reminiscent of the aversion therapy scene in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange where young thug Alex is cured of his criminal ways by having his eyelids forced open and disturbing images repeatedly beamed at him until he becomes physically ill.

However, even after the first test, the spin was still overshadowing the substance. The Lions don't directly benefit from all this spin - they are being viewed as cry-babies in some quarters. But Woodward does, or he would if it had been more successful. Most of the British media might have made jingoistic noises at the Campbell video screening but most of them referred to the real problem being the Lions' lack of ability and poor management.

Campbell's work underlines the Lions' woes. Up until last night, the spin succeeded only in casting the Lions less as a rugby team, and more as a travelling circus, complete with clowns, monkeys, tightrope walkers, the bearded lady and a lion tamer who left his whip on the bus. Woodward must have hated to hear Laurie Mains crowing that this Lions side is the worst ever to come here. No, it's just the worst managed and perhaps even the worst selected. There are players here who can perform at levels beyond that of the 1983 and 1966 sides. But we haven't seen that because the coach and spinmeister have been so busy playing games of intrigue and deception that they forgot a rugby team needs game time, combinations and rhythm. It's a cock-up of gargantuan, embarrassing proportions.

In raising the O'Driscoll issue, Woodward actually made the same mistake as Mains - another coach who only rarely admitted to getting it wrong. In the RWC 1995, remember the food poisoning and the waitress Susie? Right or wrong, there's no point whinging about it. It earns no more sympathy and, in Clive's current circumstances, earns him only suspicion that he is side-stepping the central question - why were the Lions so poor?

If it was a matter of honour why did the Lions take 24 hours to return the All Black request for O'Driscoll's phone number - by which time they had ignited the issue? If this was a matter of honour and not reputation-protection, Woodward could've taken the whole issue to the NZRU or Henry - no media, no publicity - and asked them to do the honourable thing. Chances are that Henry would've declined. Then, and only then, you go to the media, when you have captured the high ground and it is clear you are not attempting to shift the focus from the Fiasco At Jade Stadium.

Instead of which, the media strategy backfired again. Sure, a sense of injustice is a handy weapon when it comes to firing up the troops but they fired up the All Blacks as well.

However, the All Blacks have not escaped without PR mistakes either. Umaga and the All Black management should have squared up to the issue the day after it happened. Letting the matter roll on unresolved only gave the Lions more opportunities to keep raising it.

Lions' PR bloopers

* Woodward repeats mantra of "best-prepared team" in Lions history and embarks on coaching strategy demonstrating the opposite.

* Lions wrap Onewa Domain, their training ground, in red so no one can see what they were preparing. Turns out the same thing could have been achieved if viewing had been unimpeded.

* Woodward defends his selection for the first test and builds expectations that the Lions are coming with a surprise. In PR terms, building expectations and failing to deliver is disastrous. Why have generations of rugby coaches played that boring game of "we're the underdog"?

* After the first test, Woodward admitted he was wrong and suggested moving on - and then went into overdrive on the O'Driscoll issue.

* Hiring such a heavy-hitting, dark-arts spin merchant as Campbell is overkill. Any press corps who has their noses rubbed into the fact that they are being manipulated generally reacts in the opposite way to that desired.

* Campbell's media machine vets all columns written by players. The Lions media minders routinely change the words "All Blacks" into "New Zealanders" so that the 'mystique' of the All Blacks is lessened and so they appear as mere mortals, not rugby giants.

* It is in such ludicrous detail that the Lions management show how they have relied on spin ahead of substance.

This article was posted on 2-Jul-2005, 22:07 by Hugh Barrow.