Dan Jones: Who cares who makes the team... the Lions tour is about to start, and the Champions League Final should be a cracker

The Lions face Provincial Union XV in Whangarei on Saturday
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Dan Jones2 June 2017

According to that advert on Sky Sports, the All Blacks and the Lions have rugby and lionishness in their blood. The TV Guide does not wish to speculate on what is in our own blood, except to say that when the lads from WADA come knocking, Mrs TV Guide is under instruction to shoo them away with her broom.

But never mind blood. Tomorrow morning, the TV Guide will be up bright and early with a bacon pop-tart and the day’s first espresso martini on the go as Warren Gatland’s Lions play the opening match of their 2017 tour of New Zealand against the Provincial Barbarians at Toll Stadium, Whangarei.

The match kicks off at 8.35am BST, which by the TV Guide’s reckoning is approximately 57 minutes after the Lions have checked into their hotel rooms following an 11,000-mile journey to the other side of the world. Plenty of time for a shower, shave and the other thing: the TV Guide doesn’t know what all the fuss around the schedule is about.

Like the Lions, the New Zealand Barbarians are an invitational side with a Gatland in their midst: their 21-year-old fly-half is Bryn, son of Warren.

Unlike the Lions, they have been training together for a whole week, which you might say is a bit unsporting.

But fairness be damned, the circus is finally on the road and if you ask the TV Guide - or even if you don’t - that is a cause for celebration.

The Lions have never played the New Zealand Barbarians, so there’s no form book as such for the TV Guide to read from. But, casting our mind back to 2013 in Hong Kong, we have a dim memory of a 59-8 win over the regular Baa-Baas during the stopover on the way to Australia.

That day, a bloke called Jared Payne was playing at full-back for the Barbarians. The same Jared Payne is in the Lions squad this time around.

And what’s this? Back in 2010, Payne also played a match for the New Zealand Barbarians against New Zealand Maori. The TV Guide’s trivia klaxon was wailing uncontrollably before it was suddenly silenced last night when it was announced that, actually, Payne is out of the match due to a calf strain.

Regardless, the TV Guide is looking forward to its first sighting of the 2017 Lions, even if the side that Gatland Snr puts out will bear scant resemblance to the Test team that faces the All Blacks at Eden Park in three weeks’ time.

Will they look to chuck the ball about, attack space and embrace the Super Rugby mentality of scoring one more try than the opposition? Or are we going to watch a characteristically beefy, direct Gatland side, seeking dominance in the set-piece, looking to play the ball through the middle of the park and kick all their penalties?

The TV Guide is going to drink another espresso martini and get back to you on that one — although, in fairness, you can probably work it out for yourselves.

BALE MAY BE BUST BUT CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL SHOULD BE A CRACKER

One day someone will make a bust of the TV Guide’s spudlike head and put it on display in public as a celebration of our contribution to sport and punditry.

Please let that sculptor be Emanuel Santos, who made the hilarious head-and-shoulders of Cristiano Ronaldo in Madeira airport and has now done Gareth Bale ahead of tomorrow’s Champions League Final in Cardiff.

The match is between Juventus and Real Madrid: the winners of Serie A against the winners of La Liga, and pretty much the two best teams in Europe. That is rather a pleasing novelty for the Champions League and one the TV Guide would dearly love to see continue.

The bookies have the match virtually impossible to call, with Madrid favourites by a whisker. The TV Guide smells a humdinger (though it’s possible we just left the oven on overnight) and now we’ve cursed it, the match will probably end up 0-0 after extra-time, with someone winning 7-6 on penalties.

So much for predictions. Let’s get back to the business of that hysterically funny bust of Bale. Despite the honour, Bale isn’t at all sure he’ll actually be playing in his home city this weekend, on account of having a longstanding ankle knack. That would be a shame but as the TV Guide has told countless barmen and police officers, when your legs don’t work, your legs don’t work.

“I’ve been taking tablets to get through games,” says Bale. Weirdly, that’s how the TV Guide feels but maybe tomorrow will be different.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images
AFP/Getty Images

TRIPLE WHAMMY IT’S TIME TO GO CRICKET CRAZY

Crash, bash, biff, whack, willow and wallop: the ICC Champions Trophy started yesterday, and anyone who doesn’t score at least 350 is a wet blanket.

Dash home this evening and you can probably catch the end of Australia v New Zealand from Edgbaston. Tomorrow, it’s Sri Lanka v South Africa from The Oval, while on Sunday it’s back to Birmingham for the first big grudge match as India, captained by Virat Kohli, play Pakistan.

India come into that game in decent form, having beaten New Zealand on Duckworth-Lewis and thrashed Bangladesh by 240 runs. Meanwhile, Pakistan worked much harder to beat Bangladesh before their final tune-up contest against Australia was rained off.

England are favourites to win the trophy, but it will be a shoot-out kind of competition, with India and Australia both well in with a chance.

The TV Guide is just going to soak it all up, strapped to the sofa for three weeks with our mouth open and small gobbet of drool hanging from our six-day beard. So sue us

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