How one test could decide future of Lions

By Paul Hayward

Only one jersey is on a wall in Sam Warburton's house: a Lions shirt. Like everyone associated with this wonderful, life-shaping expedition, the captain of the 2017 tour would be "devastated" if the vandals won and the Lions were packed off to a museum of defunct adventures.

On the edge in this series, on the edge of history, the team Warburton leads in Wellington must defeat the All Blacks tomorrow to take the series to a decider back in Auckland. On the eve of conflict, the second Test was variously described as a cup game, knock-out rugby, all-or-nothing and a must-win. And those were just the summaries of Warburton and Warren Gatland, the head coach, who called this tour "the ultimate challenge" long before the Lions lost the first Test against the back-to-back world champions.

With Premiership clubs back home circling like buzzards over future tours, Warburton delivered a rousing defence of rugby's finest tradition. "I don't understand the politics and the finances, but from a playing point of view it's been the absolute pinnacle of my career," Warburton said here. "Every career highlight I've had has been in a Lions shirt.

"I've still loved playing for my club, Cardiff Blues, and Wales, but the Lions is what it's all about for me. Without sounding too strong, I'd be devastated, gutted, if the Lions were ever lost. The players all think exactly the same. In my house I've only got one jersey hanging up on my wall, and it's my Lions jersey. So that's how much I think of the Lions."

This is not the first tour where the viability of the four-nation crusade has been in doubt. Only four years ago, in Australia, the South African coach Jake White said before Gatland's men had clinched their series win: "The romantic side of the Lions tours, with playing provincial sides, is great. But if you're not winning a series, what's the point? The Lions need to win this series to prove that the idea still works and that it's relevant."

This time, the Lions need only to level the series to win that argument. A third-Test decider would put corks in the mouths of those who call the Lions an indulgence, an anachronism, a drain on the calendar.

In The Telegraph before the first Test, Tony Rowe, chairman of the English champions, Exeter, led the charge. "We're in a professional game and it's about money. No matter which way you cut it, it's about money," Rowe said.

"And the reality is, the amount of money we get from the Lions is farcical, if you compare that to the product or assets they're actually borrowing. It could well come down to the fact that the English clubs say, 'Well, no. Unless you're prepared to pay this amount of money, you can't have our asset'."

This, after John Spencer, a Lions board member and the manager here in New Zealand, had described as "madness" proposals to reduce future tours from 10 to eight games, and six weeks to five.

Politics will be a long way from the thoughts of Garland's side when Sonny Bill Williams is offloading his way through their midfield and Kieran Read is directing the marauding All Black pack.

Yet there is no mistaking the cliff-edge feel to this tour. The disciples need no convincing. The tens of thousands of Lions fans who travel 11,000 miles at huge expense follow the team, the tradition, the concept and, these days, the craft beers.

They are implacable loyalists, in their red coats and tour buses. Many are of a mature age. They have to be, you could argue, to afford it. But the allegiance is infectious.

The other day, Warburton finally escaped the "bubble" to meet 10 old schoolfriends as well as family members. He described the scene he stumbled into in a bar as "absolutely crazy".

Gatland says: "It's a unique thing in world rugby. The away fans are massive when you see that sea of red and hear the singing. That's a motivational factor for the players, but it's also a potentially new experience for the New Zealand fans. They're used to seeing All Blacks games where 90 per cent are supporting New Zealand, rather than 40 per cent, or half the crowd."

After the 2013 tour, the Lions undertook research to help understand why their fans were so committed. They ended up adding a scroll to their badge: "Since 1888." The chief executive, John Feehan, explained: "Fundamentally, it is the experience of touring that defines the very essence of the Lions, and not the year or the destination." In that founding year, 22 players departed Gravesend in March and were away for eight months (more of an emigration than a tour), playing 35 games of rugby union, 19 of Aussie Rules and one of cricket.

All this is under threat as rugby flirts with the surreal idea of dismantling its most popular spectacle after the World Cup. Around the games here, you often hear people asking: "How many people would follow the Exeter Chiefs on a tour of New Zealand, Australia or South Africa?"

Premiership club rugby's delusions of grandeur are the greatest threat to a 129-year tradition that has thrown up another stomach-churning clash in Wellington. On this game, a tour and a series hang. But do all future Lions trips also hinge on this second Test?

With the provincial games now over, the Lions have faced the full complement of scary names: Barbarians, Blues, Crusaders, Highlanders, Maori, Chiefs and Hurricanes. After their 30-15 defeat by Steve Hansen's team in Auckland, they gather their wits for a second Test that may go some way to determining whether Lions tours are emasculated and, even, finally killed.

Gatland, meanwhile, insists everyone in red would do it all for free. "I haven't heard anyone talk about the fee," he told me. "Your desire to be successful is what drives you. The staff don't get paid anywhere near as well as the players. I think they'd all do it for nothing - just to be able to say you'd done it.

"And the players would do it for nothing as well. If there was no fee involved they would all still want to be on that plane and challenging themselves."

The lone jersey on the walls of Warburton's home would seem to bear out that claim.

The Daily Telegraph--Telegraph Media Group