IT FEELS LIKE only yesterday that Murray Kinsella and Bernard Jackman were naming their prospective Lions squads on our The42 Rugby Weekly podcast, more than a year out from the 2021 tour to South Africa — in doing so pissing off countless listeners who dusted off the old reliable ‘slow news day’ barb in their subsequent correspondence.
And in truth, it was a slow news day: it was 30 April 2020 and we had all been plunged into a kind of sportless hell. With the world at a standstill, there wasn’t a ball kicked, flicked or pucked for months on end; retrospective analysis and future projections became all the rage in our line of work; Murray picked Tomos Williams as his starting Lions scrum-half. These were extraordinary times.
And they still are in many ways only now, more than a year on, sport is real again and not just a fond memory or a distant hope.
The Lions tour is actually happening at least, at last, and while in the coming weeks we’ll surely reflect upon ’97 and ’09 and other tours to South Africa gone by, any predictions or prospective lineups will be extremely short-term projections — and will probably include tour captain Conor Murray, who didn’t make Berch’s squad in April of last year.
The topsy-turvy last three years of the Ireland scrum-half’s career would make a decent case study in how quickly things can change, for worse and for better. What remains the same over a year on from that fateful Lions-squad-predictions pod, though, is that our own Rugby Weekly squad of Murray Kinsella, Bernard Jackman and Gavan Casey still can’t meet you in person the way they’d love to — be it in Liberty Hall Theatre or somewhere more cosy for a live show, and chat and a pint.
We’ll get there, probably sooner than it feels at the moment. Until then, we’ll play the conditions.
This Friday, 2 July at 7pm, the three lads will join The42 members on a Zoom call to chat all things Lions.
Like our previous online rugby event, this will be a standard Zoom meeting rather than a webinar. That will allow the lads to field some on-screen questions and have a natter with members in person (-ish).
As always, Bernard and Murray will share their screens and perform a few of their hugely popular analysis pieces, and presenter Gavan will pass on to them any written questions that arise in the Zoom chat.
We’ll also have a little prize to give away on the night for the best question.
Members can sign up for the event here and leave a question in advance if they fancy it, using the email address connected to their membership.
If you’re not yet a member of The42 and fancy treating yourself to all of our bonus Lions content on top of all of our other exclusive membership offerings, you can join us and support our independent sports journalism at members.the42.ie. A membership costs just €5 a month or €42 for a full year.
We can’t wait to see you all on Friday at 7pm.
