Sir, – Brian O'Connor's diatribe on the Lions tour of New Zealand must be received with the contempt it merits ("Irrelevance is the rock on which the Lions will perish", June 5th).
He regards the Lions as a joke and uses the expressions “crock of corporate crap” and “three-card trick” in reference to the tour.
He writes about the irrelevance of the tour on three or four occasions in his article and calls it “a commercial con-job at heart”. Has he looked at the current commercial aspects of other sports or is it just rugby union that tries to make money in the professional era?
He refers to the Lions as “bullshit notion of unity” which is proof positive that he hasn’t a notion about the rugby ethos.
He brings accent into his argument, writing “morketing” and “tough goy”. We would understand these variations when used used by Ross O‘Carroll-Kelly but fail to recognise who he is trying to mimic.
He ends by telling us that with reference to the whole Lions effort “sooner or later it will be put out of its misery”. That may well be so in the long, long term, but in the meantime Brian O’Connor must live with his own. – Yours, etc,
ROBERT A SHARPE,
Cootehill,
Co Cavan.