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British and Irish lions coach Warren gatland says he’s surprised by the world champions South Africa decision to withdraw from Rugby championship.
Gatland will lead the Lions for the third time on their South African tour and said the Springboks were at risk of being “underrated” for the series in 2021.
A condensed tour that begins July 3 will see the Lions play three Tests against the Springboks as part of an eight-game schedule.
South Africa withdrew from the Southern Hemisphere Rugby Championship earlier this month due to what SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux described as a coronavirus-induced “perfect storm”.
Gatland, however, says he might go blind into the series without ever seeing the ‘Boks play.
“It could be 20 months between their last game and the first test (of the Lions),” the 57-year-old former Wales coach told the BBC.
“So they may not be well done, and it will be disappointing from my perspective because I may not get a chance to see them play.”
The New Zealander, who led the Lions to success over Australia in 2013 and then drew a series with then-world champions New Zealand in 2017, sympathized with South Africa’s rugby director Rassie Erasmus.
“Those are the times we are in right now,” Gatland said.
“I can understand from Rassie’s point of view that they hadn’t had much national rugby so they felt like they were going to Australia without cooking and understandably they didn’t want to expose themselves.
“They talked about the risk of injury, I’m not really sure that was the case, but that’s their prerogative and they felt they needed more rugby.
“But what they are going to do, internally or externally, ahead of the Lions, I’m not really sure, so it’s a bit of a wait.”
The Lions will prepare for their tour with a one-time event against 2019 World Cup host Japan in Edinburgh on June 26.
That falls on the same day as the English Premiership final, which excludes the finalists’ players from participating.
However, even English players selected at the Lions party, and not participating in the final, will be prohibited from participating in the Japan Test as it is outside the Test window.
“Brexit negotiations are still going on and it’s the same with us,” Gatland told BBC Sport.
“We look forward to reaching some agreement with Premiership Rugby in terms of releasing those players.”
Gatland says it could affect the selection in the starting lineup on the tour proper.
“I can promise that we will take the best team possible,” Gatland said.
“But if you end up with a 50-50 call, and you’re not quite sure that one player has more than another player, and one player is available to you for two weeks of preparation and another is not, that may be the difference. between a selected person and an unselected person “.
