Former Scotland head coach Matt Williams has slammed the British and Irish Lions yet again, after the touring team blocked Pete Samu from featuring in the final midweek match.
The Wallabies back-rower was set to play for the First Nations and Pasifika XV outfit on Tuesday but was blocked from doing so by the Lions, citing that he hadn’t played in Super Rugby this season, which was a contractual requirement for representation.
Classless Lions
The decision angered FNP coach Toutai Kefu as well as Australian fans, particularly after Lions CEO Ben Calveley warned Rugby Australia that top players had to be released to Super Rugby teams for the games before the Test series.
“The agreement is very clear,” he said last month. “Test players have to be released to play in fixtures leading into that series. That is our expectation.”
But in the case of Samu, the back-rower who starred for Bordeaux-Begles in the Champions Cup and Top 14, the Lions blocked him from playing the pre-Test series fixture, an act that Williams dubs as ‘classless’.
He believes that the loose forward was being lined up to potentially feature for the Wallabies but was denied much-needed gametime by the tourists.
“At the start of the tour, the Lions management were unhappy that there weren’t enough Wallabies players being made available to lift the standards in the provincial teams. Yet this week, the same Lions management objected to the selection of the former Bordeaux player Pete Samu for the First Nations and Pasifika,” he wrote in his Irish Times column.
“Samu has returned to Australia to play with the Waratahs next season. As the former Australian international did not play in the Super Rugby competition this season, he fell outside the guidelines of the pre-tour agreements.
“Another way of looking at it would be that the Lions don’t want Samu match fit for the third Test. In Australia, this has been seen as the Lions acting with all the vestiges of imperialists touring their convict colony. It was a classless act. The many Samu masks being worn in the crowd on Tuesday night tells you what the locals thought of the Lions’ decision.”
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New clause to be added?
Williams also hit out at the lack of access the British and Irish Lions have given to the media during the build-up to the Test matches, with Wallaby player interviews dominating the news.
He believes that this will lead to a clause being added to touring contracts going forward, requiring the Lions to be more accessible.
“Once again this week, there has not been a single interview with a Lions player on the nightly news of the host broadcaster for the series. This is despite the Lions having a touring party of over 90 people,” he continued.
“These cultural gaffes are merely adding to the long list of failures from the Lions. They have failed to grasp the importance of giving something back to the game of rugby in Australia.
“The Lions management has been quick to drag out the fine print of the tour agreement to get Samu out of this week’s game. However, I can assure you that the next tour agreement will contain a clause insisting that Lions players are available to the local media on every day of the tour.”