THIS IS it then, at long last. Depending on your vantage point it’s been a month, four years or even 12 years in the making. Come 3pm in Durban today (2pm Irish time) the tremors in the Absa Stadium are liable to be off the Richter scale.
What’s seldom is wonderful.
The Lions’ Red Army is starting to arrive in force. All along the promenade onto the Indian Ocean outside the squad’s hotel more and more were wearing the colours as they sauntered in shorts in temperatures of 23 degrees yesterday. More and more ex-Lions and internationals are appearing and there were an estimated 1,500 at a beachfront party last night.
The night before, the pubs and eateries of the swanky Florida Road (the entire Lions squad had eaten in Butcher Boys on Wednesday evening) had been thronged and serenaded with rugby anthems from all four countries. Something momentous is undoubtedly brewing in the air.
John Smit, the Springboks captain, addressed a relatively small audience earlier yesterday morning and attempted to put the rarity of this occasion in some kind of context. Describing it as the last of the old school series left in rugby, he said: “I think it is important that as a code, Union is just so unique and holds on to those things that are dear, and which keep the moral fibre of the game strong,” he said.
“Because of the rarity of the occasion the hype has been much bigger than any other Test and that is saying something because there have been some big Test matches over the last 12 years. The Test series is going to be hugely contested because there is so much at stake and it’s unlikely that we’ll ever have another chance, both from the Lions side and our side to relive this,” Smit said.
The magnitude of it all is getting to everyone. Warren Gatland, somewhat restrained and respectful, and not of a mind for one of his eve-of-match grenades, admits to feeling privileged from the first day the Lions came together.
“When we first joined up it was the first time I’d actually got a buzz that reminded me of how I felt as a player with the All Blacks. There is so much about the history and traditions of the Lions. There’s a lot of pressure on us, a lot of people wanting us to do well. We’ve got the best players to chose from, players that are incredibly motivated to perform well when they put on their jersey. Paul O’Connell summed it up on day one – he’s a proud Munsterman, a proud Irishman and at the pinnacle of his career, yet he is putting a Lions jersey on tomorrow and that is the pinnacle for him.”
This, reckoned Gatland, would be the biggest game of his coaching career to date. Even a World Cup winner like Phil Vickery admitting that a series win here would be the peak of his career, said he felt quite sad when thinking this would be the last time he would ever have the chance to wear a Lions jersey.
For Vickery, there are two defining Test games which rugby has to offer. “One is France, the other is South Africa.” That the Springboks are the reigning world champions, is almost welcomed by the Lions. Not that they needed any help in focusing the mind.
Vickery says he will try to leave everything he has of himself on the pitch. We can safely assume at any one time all 30 will be endeavouring to do so. The early collisions to draw the lines in the sand will indeed be earth-shuddering.
The Boks have the ever-lingering 12-year-old whiff of cordite in the air for the series defeat of a dozen years ago, sealed here in the second Test in Durban. The Lions are due a win, big time, after securing just one win in seven Tests since then and having lost the last five. They also know, in their bones, they probably have to win the first Test to have a hope of outright success.
Not quite as written off as they were then, they will be every bit as super-charged. Ian McGeechan is the man with the Midas touch, and they seem much more unified and better primed than four years ago.
Paul Wallace, an heroic part of that diminutive frontrow alongside Tom Smith and Keith Wood in 1997, believes the Lions may have the better of things in the scrum. And with Tom Croft in the backrow, Lee Mears ought mostly to use that third option to keep the ball away from the imperious Bakkies Botha and Victor Matfield to ensure a good supply of their own lineout ball.
O’Connell will do his thing and lead from the front, but the key is probably how the Lions match the Boks in the collisions and at the breakdown, where David Wallace and co have to disabuse Heinrich Brussow of any notions of a feast of turnovers.
Somehow too they have to get to the magnificent Fourie du Preez, the Boks’ game controller and talisman extraordinaire, all the more so as Ruan Pienaar is short of form and game time.
This is a McGeechan-coached side, underpinned by a likeminded Welsh/Wasps ticket. They are unlikely to play an unduly kicking, mauling or pick and go game, or at any rate mix that up with plenty of width, not least because the Jamie Roberts-Brian O’Driscoll partnership is working a treat and the outside three are bang in form. Given quick ball, that looks the area where the Lions might just win it.
The Boks do have the longer place-kicking and drop goal range. But the formguide of the core of this team is, collectively, good. Individually, they’ve a host of players in form and France’s win over a rusty All Blacks under the amended laws was encouraging. It’s going to require an almighty collective effort, reaching heights they haven’t reached before, but somehow you sense they might just have it in them.
BETTING(Paddy Power): 4/11 South Africa, 22/1 Draw, 11/5 Lions. Handicap odds (Lions = 8pts) - 10/11 South Africa, 22/1 Draw, 10/11 Lions.
FORECAST: Lions to win.
