A TREMENDOUS Test match, if marred by too many off-the-ball incidents, after-match Lions' complaining, and Peter de Villiers' contemptible defence of Schalk Burger's eye-gouging. As to that, however, we shouldn't indulge in northern hemisphere self-righteousness; let's not forget that Munster's Alan Quinlan, named in the original touring party, lost his place when suspended for a similar act in the Heineken semi-final against Leinster.
The only difference was that Quinlan's misdemeanour went unpunished in the match itself, while Burger's cost South Africa three points directly and himself ten minutes in the sin-bin.
Meanwhile I have to admit to a couple of errors of judgment. Th
is Lions side has come much closer to winning the series than I thought likely when it was selected, while Stephen Jones made nonsense of my suggestion that the Lions should have picked Ronan O'Gara instead of him last Saturday. Jones had a very good game indeed, with a brilliant off-load to make Kearney's try possible, while poor O'Gara made a couple of horrid errors when he came on as substitute.
Some are blaming the defeat on O'Gara, others on South African "brutality", and others on the loss of the two Lions props which led to uncontested scrums. These are of course a nonsense, and surely in the professional game teams should be required to have two props among their substitutes. It's true that the Lions had had just the upper hand in the set scrum this time. So to that extent the recourse to uncontested scrums damaged them. On the other hand, with the present off-side line at the scrum, the side putting the ball into an uncontested scrum has a wonderful opportunity to move the ball quickly – and the Lions didn't make good enough use of this.
Actually, setting excuses and complaints aside, the Lions have only themselves to blame for their defeat. Having played outstandingly well throughout the first half, they sat back in the second, kicked too much and too badly, Mike Phillips at scrum-half being the chief offender, and seemed to forget that, as at Durban, they had had the Springboks in trouble whenever they moved the ball wide. The Lions changed a winning game – and lost. Of course they might still have won but for O'Gara's missed tackle on Fourie, and they might have drawn but for his stupid challenge on Fourie du Preez, but the fact is that they had already got themselves into trouble by turning to a kicking game and executing it ineptly.
As it was the Springboks scored three tries to one, and when any team does that it's difficult to argue that they didn't deserve to win – all the more so since they came back from 19-8 down in the last quarter of the match.
Ian McGeechan isn't ending his career in triumph, but he can take pride, once the initial disappointment has eased, in restoring the idea of the Lions to its proper place. There have been mistakes in selection, both of the original tour party and of the Test side, but there is nothing unusual in this, and some of them were at least understandable. His choice of Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards as his chief assistants more or less guaranteed that Phillips would be preferred to his fellow Welshman Dwayne Peel. Given that the Lions' strength was in their backs, Peel would have been the better choice, for he gets the ball away far more quickly from the base of scrum and ruck. Phillips is a very fine rugby player, but not a first-class scrum-half.
There has been little joy for us Scots in this Lions tour. Even though Euan Murray was named in the original party, he seemed to be very quickly excluded from the Test reckoning, although his domination of Mtawarira at Murrayfield in November should have secured his place. None of the other Scots seems to have been greatly considered, Mike Blair's chance of making an impact being nullified by the abysmal performance of the Lions pack in the first game of the tour, while the reversion to uncontested scrums on Saturday probably cost Ross Ford his chance of coming on as a substitute.
It will be a shame if the memory of this magnificent match is soured by complaints about South African "brutality", and not only because the Lions weren't always angels themselves. Brian O'Driscoll was lucky not to be penalised for his charge on Danie Roussow, which resulted in both players leaving the field injured. After the game, Phillips opined "we were by far the better team" – perhaps a natural reaction to disappointment, but a mistaken one. They were indeed by far the better team – for 40 minutes – but then they lost it, and in the end South Africa deserved their victory, even if one may still fondly think that a draw would have been the right result – and not only because it would have kept the series alive until today.
