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"It will be good for us."Good? Only if the Lions generate some momentum in the half-dozen matches leading into the First Test in Christchurch on 25 June. They thought they would be up and running already, having put a minimum of 40 points on Argentina in Cardiff six days ago, but the Pumas, inexperienced but as proud and committed as could be, refused to co-operate. With the possible exception of Jonny Wilkinson, no Lion played himself into Test contention. "They're taking 45 players this time," said Cronin, "and not only is there a chance of them falling out, you've got a large management team who could easily fall out too. If you get that, the rot really will set in." Cronin won 45 caps during an 11-year career in Scotland's second row, sharing in the famous Grand Slam defeat of England in 1990. His recollection of New Zealand in 1993 is realistic and unrepentant.
It carries a dollop of humour but also a warning of what lies ahead for Sir Clive Woodward and company."The worst thing on a Lions tour," said Cronin, "is when it dawns on you that you're going to be stuck in the midweek team. In my position I was competing with Wade Dooley, who had to leave the tour because his father passed away, and then they called Martin Johnson out. We had an English manager, Geoff Cooke, and assistant coach, Dick Best, so Ian McGeechan as a Scot may have been outnumbered in selection. My belief is that if two Scots, McGeechan and Jim Telfer, had been there as coaches, with Cooke as manager, it would have been different."Cronin started well, on the winning side in his first four Lions matches against North Auckland, the Maori, Southland and Taranaki.
He says he didn't play in his fifth, against Hawke's Bay, which is either a lapse of memory or an ironic reflection. It was the 10th tour fixture and it fell between the First and Second Tests.By then the Lions' dirt-trackers were firmly established and not as publicly content with their lot as Donal Lenihan's "doughnuts" of 1989. A team captained by Stuart Barnes - who had lost out as Test fly-half to his great rival, Rob Andrew - and featuring four Scottish forwards plus a demoted Will Carling at centre were beaten by their unregarded provincial opponents, 29-17. Worse followed when a Carling-led team collapsed 38-10 to Waikato the following midweek, four days before the Lions lost the Third Test."Maybe I wasn't old enough to respect what other people expected of me as a Lion," said Cronin, now running an architectural reclamation business in Surrey and Somerset. Take it from one who knows: Damian Cronin, a member of the midweek team ritually slated ever since for going "off-tour" towards the end of the trip and undermining the Test side. So when I have played the manager has had to shuffle things around a bit and I suppose I take that as a bit of a compliment."For Real, finishing runners-up is not an option and a second trophyless season has prompted the inevitable calls for a Galactico clear-out. But Owen believes that whatever happens this summer he can still hold his head up high.
