RUGBY HAS ONE hell of a week coming up, a week of a hundred talking points. The first Lions Test in Kings Park, Durban, threw up any amount of issues and theories and they're all going to be debated long and hard in the coming days. Finally, after a month of phoney wars, the real thing arrived yesterday and it did not disappoint.
Talking points, then: was the Lions' near heroic comeback down to their own insightful play or South Africa's lack of match sharpness? Was it relevant to the second Test. Have the Lions found weakness or were those last minutes not as meaningful as a
ll that? You could start there.
Or you could ponder South Africa's arrogance if you please. With a seemingly unassailable lead at 26-7 the Springbok management began to remove some of their most effective stars from the field.
At the time it didn't look risky. Let's be clear: when the captain John Smit, the wrecking ball prop Tendai 'Beast' Mtawarira, the brute Bakkies Botha, the genius scrum-half Fourie du Preez and the coming man of the Springbok back-row Heinrich Brussow were all substituted between the 52nd and 68th minute there weren't too many Lions hearts skipping a beat and sensing an opportunity.
The Springboks were so far superior at that stage it was an embarrassment. The Lions, by then, were not just playing to save face, they were playing to protect the brand as a commercial entity. It had taken a ferocious buffeting in the opening hour, almost as mortifying a pounding as it suffered four years ago when Captain Bonkers – Clive Woodward – was running the show.
Debates will rage now about selection. Phil Vickery was destroyed in the scrum by the Beast. Maybe the Beast was boring in on him illegally at times but then how do we explain the transformation in the Lions scrum when the more nuggetty Adam Jones appeared? The Beast didn't growl so viciously after that. Jones will surely start on Saturday.
There's an interesting call to be made at hooker. Matthew Rees made a difference when he came on, certainly in the scrum. Lee Mears looked lost. The Englishman has some uncomfortable nights ahead of him.
Selection, selection. The power game was lacking from the Lions until late on. Alun-Wyn Jones will feel the heat now from the other three locks, Donncha O'Callaghan, Nathan Hines and Simon Shaw. There could be movement there. There could be change in the back-row, Martyn Williams for David Wallace, perhaps. Ugo Monye won't feel good about his own prospects. He had chances to score and failed to execute. Rob Kearney and Luke Fitzgerald will have cause for optimism tonight. They must have a chance of replacing him.
The Springboks will probably change nothing. But they'll talk plenty. How did they nearly lose a Test that they had in the palm of their hand? All over South Africa, rugby fans will have been breathing sighs of relief last night.
It was a day that was a long time coming. You couldn't look at some of the matches on the tour before yesterday and not wonder about the aura of the Lions. Just over 12,000 people at the first match in Rustenberg was explained away by the fact that the Super 14 final, featuring the rampant Bulls, was going on at the same time. Fair enough. But the turn-out since then has not been good.
Before the first Test the cumulative crowd for the first six games came in at 149,869. That's an average of 24,978. Four years ago at the same stage of the tour those numbers were 177,200 and 29,533. A drop of nearly 5,000 people per game in a country that loves its rugby as much as South Africa needs some explaining.
The cost of tickets was a cause. Another reason offered up was that the Bokke were lukewarm on the whole deal because their provincial sides contained no Springboks, no superstars to marvel at. That, though, is usually the case on these tours. In New Zealand four years ago, of the All Blacks who started the first Test, only Carl Hayman and Leon Macdonald had played in one of the earlier matches. In 2001 in Australia, 10 of the First Test Wallabies were in hibernation until things got serious at the Gabba. On both tours, though, the crowds turned out in great numbers.
Was there another reason behind the stayaway Bokke? Certainly the South Africans have not behaved as we thought they would. All forecasts predicted that from top to toe the country would be a hotbed of intimidation, rugby fans roaming the land muttering dark thoughts about 1997 and what they intended to do to the Lions by way of retaliation for a dreadful series defeat.
But that kind of edge was missing. Until now. At 26-7 yesterday with 15 minutes to go the Lions were in a wretched place. A profound crisis was in the offing. All that footage of Willie John McBride and all the other heroes of the past talking about the greatness of the Lions would have started to look wholly out of date had Ian McGeechan's team not salvaged something from the wreckage.
This week is now all about selection and excitement and dreams of overcoming a deficit instead of the deathly quiet that would have fallen over the party had the late surge not occurred. The Lions are still looking at a likely third successive series loss but at least there is a shred of hope where for so long yesterday there was confusion and shock. They're still alive out there. Only just, but they're not quite done for yet.
YOU'D think that Donald Findlay QC would have better things to do with his day than defend a guy like William Walls. Mr Walls has become something of a cause célèbre of the Follow Follow brigade ever since he was found guilty of breach of the peace, aggravated by religious and racial prejudice, at Kilmarnock District Court in December.
This all followed a match between Kilmarnock and Rangers at Rugby Park during which Walls sang a medley of tunes from the dark side of the Ibrox catalogue. The Famine Song was blasted out with gusto. When he was told to button it by the match-day stewards he refused. Indeed, he followed it up with some lovely ditties about Fenian b******* and the Pope.
Findlay, clearly a man with far too much time on his hands, mounted the tired old defence of the word Fenian as a political observation rather than a religious remark. Walls, meanwhile, accepted that there was indeed a religious aspect to what he'd been chanting. That kinda put a spanner in Donald's works.
At Walls' appeal during the week, Lord Carloway upheld his conviction, saying that even the refrain of the Famine Song was racist as it displayed "malice and ill-will towards people of Irish descent living in Scotland."
No doubt, some Rangers fans will be up in arms over this. To the lot of them, civilised Scotland says: Get a life.
