As the players sat all around him in a dressing room crackling with high voltage tension, the Wales coach had spoken of those about to wear it for the last time. How do you want to be remembered?
They would go down in history come what may, either as the first Lions to be whitewashed in South Africa, over a period spanning three centuries, or the first to finish a tour here in a fashion which proved beyond even the mighty team of Doing it without four of their best players from Pretoria the previous week was one thing. Doing it at Ellis Park would be something else. The All Blacks had shipped 86 points on their last two visits to the most inhospitable of places, where the Springboks lose on average once every 10 years and where they had never been beaten by a double-figure margin.
Therefore, to inflict a defeat upon the World Cup holders on a scale twice as great as any witnessed in their largest citadel appeared too far-fetched to imagine in the circumstances. Many of those who made it possible will swear to their dying day that the Lions had the game won before they left the dressing room — Ugo Monye, for one.
You looked around and you saw the tears, you knew what it meant. Everyone was in the right place. From then on, losing was not going to be an option. Heartwarming sporting defeats are rare these days. Modern rugby union is seldom a game for romantics and the outcome is usually all that matters. When players as experienced as Phil Vickery and Stephen Jones insist they have never known a more life-enhancing tour, the Lions concept has surely been refreshed for years to come.
Only a side which bonded tighter than any of its recent predecessors could have produced a performance of this calibre at the end of an achingly long season with a host of first-choice players missing. There have been more obviously talented Lions squads than this one, but few have risen to the stiffest of challenges with more enthusiasm.
In the process all sorts of myths have been buried: that northern-hemisphere rugby is stodgier than the southern equivalent, that endless hours on the training field are essential, and that the Lions are dead meat. The reason the Lions deserved this win was that, unlike in the second Test, they refused to allow their opponents back into the game after they started with far more cohesion and purpose.
Had they not been able to subsume their bitter disappointments and failed again they would have deserved nothing; not for all their undoubted bravery and commitment. Those who shouted loudest the previous weekend, that any adverse comment after defeat was whinging, have been quickest to claim the Lions beat a Springbok second XV. They forget their pre-match supremacist boasting that their reserves were better than the best the northern hemisphere could offer.
Also, that many knowledgeable South African observers thought the multiple changes strengthened their team, particularly in the centres where the Lions had unarguably been superior. In uttering these pathetic statements they fail to realise that therein necessarily lies an insult to the tourists far worse than the refusal to allow any Springboks to play in pre-Test games.
Message of the tour: first, keep the man in the street involved by keeping ticket prices down. Second, keep pushing the four Home Unions for proper preparation time. Third, and most important, keep the faith. That included a more severe fine in the case of SARU and the suspension of the Springbok players and management from the World Cup in It added, however, such a ban would have remained suspended in the absence of further acts of misconduct.
The committee said it believed its decision would deter all rugby players from adopting such an unwise and ill-considered way to make their feelings clear to the IRB, or the general rugby watching public.
SARU issued a statement saying it noted the outcome of the Committee but would not respond until it had reviewed the full findings. Sourced from: The New Zealand Herald. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. The committee said it believed its decision would deter all rugby players from adopting such an unwise and ill considered way to make their feelings clear to the IRB, or the general rugby-watching public.
The IRB said it welcomed the guilty verdict but was disappointed with the punishments. SARU said it noted the outcome of the committee but would not respond until it had reviewed the full findings. This article is more than 12 years old. Captain Smit given heaviest fine but all escape World Cup ban IRB 'extremely disappointed' and may ask for tougher sanctions.
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