Rory Best

By Gary Watton
May 26 2013

After Dylan Hartley's characteristic moment of madness, Ireland hooker Rory Best will now sit in the aeroplane seat bound for Australia that had previously been allocated to the naughty Northampton forward. This brings the tally of Irishmen on the Lions tour party to a more realistic ten out of 37.

Hartley has always been a loose cannon, and his latest indiscretion in the Premiership final at Twickenham actually gets the Lions selectors out of a little hole. Gatland and company absorbed a sizeable amount of criticism at what some observers deemed the controversial omission of Rory Best. Warren G did readily admit that the decision to bypass the Ulster hooker was the one which perhaps took the longest to arrive at. Now that Best has the opportunity to tour avec the Lions, the selectors and pro-Best supporters will soon see if his original exclusion is vindicated or proven to be a bad oversight.

Meanwhile Rory's upgrade from the economy class of a tour to North America to the executive class of a Lions tour to Australia will necessitate a re-shuffle of the Ireland pack. We now have all four most recent Ireland captains being transported to Australia, namely Best, Heaslip, O'Connell, and O'Driscoll.

Ahead of any announcement by the IRFU, Peter O'Mahony gets my vote as the new captain, with Isaac Boss, Chris Henry, or the experienced Andrew Trimble the possible alternatives.