The sterile Lions Tests are killing the game

You have to laugh, even in the darkness. It’s better than the alternative. After countless stackings of the deck in favour of attack over defence by World Rugby, we have just been subjected to the most sterile, poverty-stricken Test series in well over a century of officially-sanctioned British and Irish Lions business trips. Six tries in three matches? Whoopee doo. Hang out the bunting.

- CHRIS HEWETT

The Lions are no strangers to playing in crimson-stained straitjackets rather than red jerseys: way back in 1968, they managed only a single try across four meetings with the Springboks, scored in Pretoria by none other than Willie John McBride at his…er… exhilarating, devil-may-care best.

If we’re being generous to the point of absurdity, we can at least celebrate the latest tourists’ doubling of that miserable tally.

It is also the case that they emerged from this most blighted of adventures in far better shape than the 1974 Boks, who also found themselves stuck on the most singular of single figures – a try by the centre Peter Cronje in the final, drawn Test in Johannesburg – and in so doing, staked an irrefutable claim to the title of “worst South African team in history”: an outfit almost as pointless in the literal sense as they had been in the metaphorical one.

But it is rare indeed to witness two sides suffering from collective agoraphobia at the same time and stifling each other into submission with equally conservative brands of riskfree anti-rugby. Sadly, this was the fare on offer over the last three weekends and unsurprisingly, it resulted in the lowest try-count of any Lions series since the first official venture way back when in 1910.