KEITH WOOD INTERVIEW: JOHNNY WATTERSONmeets the entrepreneur, pundit, and iconic rugby figure. No regrets . . . except, he'd love to be playing those Boks again

HE’S CALLING himself a ‘has-been’ Lion, an ‘ex-Lion’.‘ He’s talking about the “Bucket List” – the things you must do before you die. He’s seen the film. Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson looking death in the face and going about burying any regrets they may have had about their lives before somebody else buries them. You know, the Mile High Club, the parachute jump, saying you’re sorry. . .

Former Lion and Ireland captain Keith Wood took to the film but the saccharine end when Nicholson’s generous and out-of-character oration on Freeman’s death was Hollywood predictive text that reminds him of a 2003 movie Secondhand Lions, where Michael Caine and Robert Duvall do a realistic line in gruff codgers down in rural Texas.

“Secondhand Lion,” he says, smiling to himself, not content with “has-been” or “ex”. On his bucket list is to swim in the lake near his home in Killaloe. The picturesque Clare village on the Shannon is where former Munster player Sean Payne and Anthony Foley also live. Some time ago, Foley moved in with the Woods while a roof was put on the pub they bought. The families have a close history and the place frames his childhood.

Woods says the Killaloe water is clean now, clear and without the peat that used to float down from Bord Na Mona’s turf cutting escapades up the river. The murky soup is, once again an amenity, the way it was. It’s been at least 10 years since he last dipped his toe.

There’s little regret in his voice. Self-effacement might indicate he’s unafraid of self-awareness and even if he’s exaggerating some, we all remember Wood, the player, heaving his battered body into wheelie bins full of ice water following matches. We recall how he used talk about the flogging affect matches had on his frame in latter years, the wonky shoulder and the tremendous thud of the hits he gave and accepted as both the lifeblood and torment of the professional game.

He was the hooker who put his body on the line and on the operating table. He was also one of those few picked for the last Lions’ joust with the Springboks, who set off for the summer expedition and won the series. There is no bucket list issue with the Lions. When they look back, there may be with Jerry Flannery and Alan Quinlan. But not Woods.

He is one of the successful ’97 crew but as he casts his eye over the 2009 edition leading into the first Test today, there are irksome kinks and knots that have offset his generally Lion-loving mood.

“It breaks my heart at the moment,” he says. “I have to say the idea of not playing Springboks in the games against the Provinces . . . I think it’s robbing everyone of something and my belief is when the Lions sit down to do their tour of contract four years out they dictate the terms.

“The income that is going to be generated by 40,000 Lions supporters is colossal. So in terms of the rights of this event, an awful lot of those should be held by the Lions, not just the host nation.

“Having been priced out of the market, where matches might be two and a half times the price of a Super 14 match . . . I mean you want to play in a full stadium. It is once every 12 years in each country and should be a momentous occasion. But not having that in full stadia is disappointing. I think the Lions should insist on having the Springboks contracted to play with the provincial teams and I think they should insist on an itinerary that suits the Lions.”

So are they blowing this tour by the way it has been organised? “I wouldn’t go to that extreme,” he says. “That’s-over sensationalising it. But I think there are lessons to be learned. In ’97, for the Natal Sharks match in Durban, they were absolutely shoehorned into the place. They were smaller rural stadiums and that was the deal but they were full. Then again I think putting the Natal Sharks on a Wednesday night isn’t exactly right because it’s a big game and it’s about trying to get those things right for the people that follow it. It’s just a little bit disappointing and in terms of an experience, I think the guys would want to have big crowds.

“Can the Lions determine contracts? Well if they don’t go nothing happens. That wouldn’t be a threat but you need to get these things to work properly. That’s all.” Lions Tours are aspirational ventures. A big idea and a venerable idea of a disparate group of players launching themselves on the Southern Hemisphere has not evolved with the passing years. Few players return with stories of bagging big game in Pretoria, Durban or Johannesburg.

The ’97 trip was the first professional tour and also the first to South Africa after the end of apartheid.

Just like now, it came a few years after the Springboks had won the World Cup (1995).

But South Africa, like New Zealand and less so Australia, also represents a type of zealous belief that borders on arrogance. Born out of winning more than losing, the faith in their ability is maybe the most powerful weapon in their arsenal the Lions must over come. ‘Must win first game’ has become the cliché of the last three weeks.

“The Springboks are hyper-confident. They are world champions and it’s about exactly how much they believe it,” says Wood. “And if they get the upper hand in the first match I don’t know if there is a way back, to be honest.

“But that faith can work for them heavily and work against them heavily. That’s what happened in ’97. We got the upper hand by dint of not crumbling in the face of their superior forward strength, which they did have. And also because they did not pick a goal-kicker.

“I didn’t bother to watch the tapes of that tour until about three weeks ago. I had thought Neil Jenkins had put over every kick on that tour and he didn’t. But he did in the second match. We took our chances, they didn’t take theirs.

“After the first match they didn’t really react to the second game (in which the Springboks scored three tries but did not convert any penalties or conversions, with Jenkins kicking five penalties and Jeremy Guscott kicking a drop-goal series-winner).

“They just thought they’d gotten it wrong (in the first match). They actually thought they could bully us out of it and they couldn’t.

“But it’s very hard for this Lions team to go into the game arrogant because everything is stacked against them. Starting on the first day of every trip you could think the Lions should lose the series 3-0. It is very hard to take an arrogant view from that position. But you can take a confident view and you can take a view of your own team’s ability.”

Wood believes Jamie Heaslip has matured and come of age, that Brian O’Driscoll has moved as close to a priceless commodity as you can have in the game, calibrated, insightful, vintage.

Tommy Bowe, he says, reflects what the Lions tour is about. He’s playing well, he has reacted to Ian McGeechan’s demands and maybe more than anything he walks around with a smile.

“Everyone is looking to get an edge,” says Woods. “The team simply cannot lose going forward. They can’t lose all of the time because that would be the end of the Lions. So at least on this trip they’ve won all the matches so far and they are not showing their hand. And you can see they are not showing their hand.

“They are not over complicating things. And it’s difficult to do that. They want to hold stuff back, whereas the Springboks are holding everything back by provincial teams not having their international players. In that sense the Lions are losing the benefit of the first part of the tour.

“But at the same time South Africa are maybe underdone too because they have not played anyone of any standard either.”

Wood has little reason for holding a bucket list. As well as the ’97 win, he went on the 2001 Lions tour and was the inaugural IRB World Player of the Year that year . He’s scored more international tries as hooker than anyone. He’s an entrepreneur, a pundit, a columnist, iconic rugby figure. No regrets. No regrets. But he’s permissibly wistful.

“I would say there were a lot of problems with the last tour. They’ve rectified that. All you have to do now is cock an ear at Gerald Davies,” says the ‘has-been, ex Lion’. “Jesus you’d want to get out there and play again.”