A round-up of other Lions news
Off-colour remark lands Best in it
SKY SPORTS News were forced into an embarrassing apology yesterday when former England coach Dick Best made a racist comment about England fullback Delon Armitage.
Before the squad was announced, Best was asked why he opted for Armitage ahead of Tommy Bowe in his test XV. Assuming the microphone was switched off, Best responded: “You’ve always got to have a coloured boy in the team.”
Sky immediately cut back to the studio and a stunned presenter Mike Wedderburn, who is black.
Co-presenter Millie Clode later apologised, saying: “[Best] made remarks he thought were off-camera. We would like to apologise for any offence this may have caused.”
It was reminiscent of 2004 when ITV commentator Ron Atkinson resigned after racist comments about Chelsea’s Marcel Desailly.
** The 37 Lions to tour South Africa will earn £38,000 (€43,062). That’s an increase on the £22,000 fee for the unsuccessful New Zealand experience in 2005. If Paul O’Connell’s team repeat the heroics of 1997 and win the series they will receive a £4,000 (€4,532) win bonus with a further £2,000 (€2,266) win bonus from each game. The players will also benefit from a £100,000 (€113,281) central commercial fund.
O'Connell gets Kenny first preference
THERE WAS an unseemly scramble from the various Irish political factions to jump on the Paul O’Connell bandwagon yesterday, with Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny even managing to beat the starter’s gun.
At 1.42pm, before Ian McGeechan made the captaincy announcement, the Fine Gael press office fired off a release entitled: “Paul O’Connell ‘towers above all others’ – Kenny.”
Mindful of being politically and nationally correct, Kenny also gave a shout out to his old friend Brian O’Driscoll.
At 1.49pm the official Lions squad announcement appeared in the sports email queue. Two minutes later, Offaly hurling fan Brian Cowen weighed in with a simple one-liner: “Taoiseach congratulates Paul O’Connell on his selection as captain of the British and Irish Lions.”
Usually the Minister for Art, Sport and Tourism, Martin Cullen, is the quickest gun when it comes congratulatory press releases. His email did, nonetheless, land in at a respectable 2.39pm.
Robbie tries to stir it up for Gatland
FORMER IRELAND and subsequently Transvaal scrumhalf John Robbie weighed in yesterday on two potential areas of tension within the Lions camp.
Lions forwards coach Warren Gatland was asked to comment on the public spat he and O’Connell became embroiled in during the Six Nations over Gatland’s remarks about Ireland coach Declan Kidney.
O’Connell, clearly making light of the issue, started giggling but Gatland hardly helped matters by completely deflecting the question.
Robbie, a radio presenter in Cape Town since touring there with the Lions in 1980, called it: “This well publicised spat between Warren Gatland and Paul O’Connell”.
“In that press conference the issue was sort of dealt with but it didn’t look to me like it had been dealt with yet, “ he went on. “It looked to me like there was something lingering. You have got such a huge Irish presence. They have won the Grand Slam and yet there is no Irishman on the management side. You start getting things wrong and you can get into all sorts of trouble.”
