Mike Gibson forgotten in despatches???? Not round these parts.

I have learned from this forum that there is a generation of Aussies who think that Mike Gibson is some wizened old Australian sports reporter. But here in God’s own country we know who the real Mike Gibson is.

Actually there were two. Another Michael Gibson won a few caps at number 8 for Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s. He might even have played with the legendary one. But there’s only one Cameron Michael Henderson Gibson.

So far as we know.

On a side note, as an England supporter, I have mixed feelings about the way McGeechan used the England players to beat the Wallabies in 1989. In 1987, England were a mess. For some years, Rob Andrew had been selected as fly-half even when he had some nightmare games. Finally, he was out of favour after missing some easy goal kicks which cost England heavily in the Five Nations. However, his great rival, Stuart Barnes, had earlier thrown his toys out of the pram and refused to sit on the bench while Andrew was being picked ahead of him, and so he was ignored as a replacement. The 1987 World Cup team featured neither and the resulting mess ushered in the Carling era. England’s real revival began in 1988, in particular with a festival of tries in a 28-19 win against Australia at Twickenham. We seemed to have given up the forward-based kicking game and finally trusted our backs to do the job.

However, England weren’t the top dogs by any measure when the 1989 Lions tour came around and it was expected that The Welsh & Scots would dominate. As it turned out, McGeechan promoted the English boys from the midweek squad and they loved playing with the likes of Calder, Jones, Sole, Evans, the Hastings brothers and Dai Young. McGeechan added to the English revival by using those English players in the series win but, crucially, he also rehabilitated Rob Andrew. At first, England swept all before them in the 1990 Five Nations with a marvellous mix of forward and back play which had always seemed the preserve of the other home nations. Andrew was under orders to pass the ball to Carling, Guscott, Underwood et al and not kick it away as he had been doing for seasons. But what McGeechan giveth, McGeechan taketh away and it was his Scottish team which beat England in the grand slam decider and left them traumatized for years to come. Geech knew what made the English boys tick and he knew how to coach a side to beat them. Consequently, England retreated into their shell and reverted to ten man “winning” rugby – which Geech had shown them how to do in Australia with Andrew – rather than the attractive play that seemed to be within their capabilities. No wonder Campese messed with their minds with the “boring” tag during the 1991 World Cup.

So damn McGeechan for screwing up England for years by getting them to fall back on their forwards and Andrew’s kicking game. That’s slightly tongue in cheek of course. Even if there’s a grain of truth, the man would deserve forgiveness for all he’s done in the cause of the Lions. Not to mention the small matter of helping England to a World Cup by picking Martin Johnston as Lions captain in 1997.

That’s a pretty heavy chip you’e got there, Jools. Why not get rid of it and take a load off?

N.B. Wasn’t Andrew a late call-up during the 1989 tour?

Back in 1971, the two first choice props were Sandy Carmichael of Scotland and Ray McLoughlin of Ireland. The latter was also effectively the forwards coach as Carwyn James, for all his talents, had been a fly half and was the first to admit that his knowledge of the dark arts of scrummaging was less than first rate.

Neither first choice prop made it as far as the first test; the notorious game against Canterbury saw to that. So up stepped Ian “Mighty Mouse” McLauchlan and Sean Lynch to fill the gap. They did so with such effect that the Lions won a test series for the only time in New Zealand.

Also making an impact on that tour were two abrasive young forwards Gordon Brown from Scotland and Derek Quinnell from Wales. Quinnell had not been capped when he went on tour but he made the test team as part of a Lions plan to choke off the main attacking threat from the All Blacks, namely the powerful scrum half Sid Going who could run through a brick wall but couldn’t pass water.

Gordon Brown, who would go on to be a Lions and Scotland legend, was selected for the last two tests in place of the veteran Welshman Delme Thomas, much to the initial annoyance of his second row partner Willie John McBride. But Brown would convince him of his worth pretty quickly.

In South Africa in 1974 along with some of the all time greats playing pretty close to their peak, such as .Edwards, Bennett, JPR and JJ Williams, Mervyn Davies, McBride, Cotton, Slattery, McLauchlan and Brown (now with their reputations cemented) and Uttley, were others of less certain fame. How many people would put Billy Steele and Dick Milliken in their greatest all time Lions teams? In fact, who would put them in their greatest all time Scottish or Irish teams? Not many I suspect. Yet they won six test caps between them (all victories) and were an essential part of the backline.

Milliken’s partner in the centre was an industrious and astute Scot called McGeechan. Neither might have been first choice at the start of the tour. Rather the places might have been earmarked for the lighting quick Geoff Evans of England who had destroyed Wales with his pace at Twickenham that season or the rather more solid Roy Bergiers of Wales, who despite slipping up that season were still the dominant team among the home nations.

In 1989 in Australia the Lions had to come back from a bad loss in the first test to win the series, something they have never done before or since. They changed the team significantly bringing in many England players who would form the nucleus of the successful English side of the early 1990s. Rob Andrew, who was probably third choice fly half at the outset, played a pivotal role and so did a young centre called Guscott whose sole test appearance to then had been on England’s tour of Romania.

In too came Paul Ackford, a policeman who had a late vocation to top class rugby and would quickly become world class, and Mike Teague in the back row, who many thought was lucky to be on the tour in the first place. They demolished the Australian pack and won the series.

In 1997 in South Africa the Lions were something of an unknown quantity. Or at least the players who won the tests were. The opening up of the game allowed many who had gone to league such as Alan Tait and Scott Gibbs to tour as well as those who had never played top class union at all like John Bentley.

They had trouble in the pack as well with injuries to first choice players like Doddie Weir and Jason Leonard. So in came Jeremy Davidson and Paul Wallace, both from what was then the crappiest team in the championship, Ireland, and played out of their skins.

Davidson would be selected by his team mates as the player of the Test series. A tall rangy second row he benefited greatly from the change in the laws which legitimised “lifting” in the lineouts. As indeed did his lifters. Lighter than the average lock he was much easier to chuck into the air, and the Lions did to such effect that his opposite number Mark Andrews, who thought he was the best number 4 jumper in the world, was comprehensively cleaned out.

The Springboks might have concluded logically that given the Lions’ hooker Keith Wood was not the most accurate thrower in and that the Lions’ captain Martin Johnson was easily the best jumper at two in the world that all Lions ball would go to the front of the lineout. Instead it went to Davidson who caught everything two handed and set up driving mauls to such good effect the Boks went reeling. Neil Jenkins kicked the goals and the rest was history.

So when looking for signs pointing to a Lions victory, don’t look at the established stars like O’Driscoll, O’Connell, Williams (both of them) Vickery et all. You expect a certain performance from those guys. It will be the performances of some of the lesser guys who will make the difference.

I believe in theory Woodward was right.

But there was a really buzz around the All Blacks camp following their destruction of France in Paris but 6 months earlier.

Would love to get the inside word on what was said to the team prior (and, based on my position, I think I might try to dig deeper on that), but me thinks that Umaga and Henry would have stressed that a strong Lions tour by NZ would catapult them to bigger things.

It ended up to be very true, but unfortunately, the momentum couldn’t carry through to 2007.

I think Lions will take first test.

So much emotion and feeling in my experience is often to great to overcome, no matter how strong the rugby team.

But, despite my mixed opinions of De Villiers as a coach, there is far too much class in the Boks for them to go down.

Even second test.

Lions thumped in the third.

First lady experience is nothing to do with any US statewoman, rather than with a lass who I genuinely thought was a lady…..

Until later in the evening.

But even that insane experience did not match the thrill of seeing so many Lions jumpers, many of who crooned at me as I proudly strutted down the street in a skin tight All Black jumper.

I wasn’t going to have an ale tonight, but now I must.

South Africa was made for Lions tours, all this out of Africa stuff is beautiful and we Saffas can’t wait for kickoff. Welcome Lions!

Spiro, I have fond memories of Springbok French and Wallaby tours of NZ too. Disappointing that the Lions tour is the only surviving remnant.

Hemjay & David, not sure about a sanzar lions team (what would be there challenge or ‘test’?) but the B&I Lions could have a go at a SANZAR grand slam. Play three tests, one against each country. How about that?

I doubt any national team (or combined team) in the world would be capable of achieving a SANZAR grand slam but it would be something to aspire too that’s for sure.

Apples and pears, Rugby Fan. One game was a final, the other a semi-final. Leinster and Leicester are both experienced knock-out competitors, the young and inexperienced (a fact that has largely been ignored) Crusaders are not. Further, the game was played in SA which means a day less travelling for the Crusaders. The odds were stacked in the favour of the Bulls and still they conceded heavily as they have done for the last half of the season. To that extent I agree with Fred. It’s highly unlikely that some of the best backs in Europe would not score heavily against the Bulls. A more appropriate and intelligent comparison might have been the HC QF Munster demolition of the Ospreys – a home again in which one side showed multi-dimensional ability. What if the Super final is low scoring and boring? What does Mr. Zavos conclude then? Please, eh?!

So much went wrong on and off the pitch in 2005 that it’s difficult to know whether any of Woodward’s innovations were a good idea. McGeechan has surely done the right thing in ditching them to see if he can try to rediscover the pride. Woodward recently said he has few regrets about the way he managed the team and says that his back line selection for the first Test of Peel, Jones, Wilkinson, BOD, Thomas, Lewsey and Robinson still looks “tasty” when he sees it on paper today. He might be right but we’ll never know because he didn’t have the wit to give them a game together before sending them out at Jade Stadium and I think he knows that was a big mistake. That game has so many bad memories for Lions fans. Even outside the controversial tackle and the other injuries, I still remember the Lions lineout being an utter shambles which made you wonder what the hell all those coaches had been doing.

Most people remember Ryan Jones having a decent tour but I also remember Shane Horgan doing as much as he could for a losing cause so it was good to see him get some glory with the recent Leinster Heineken Cup win. Here’s hoping that more players stand up like that in 2009. And I don’t mean in the way that Spiro fears when he described captain Paul O’Connell in an earlier piece as “a confrontational player who is not averse to belting the opposition or stomping them when his blood is up (which is most of the time).” Mind you, those Bulls did a great job against the Crusaders and it’s hard to disagree with Spiro’s view that they looked “20-points better than Leinster”.

Like most from the Northern hemisphere I dislike the lack of contest at the breakdown and reckon it is one of the reasons why you see a lot of cricket scores. The bulls would not put 20 points on Leinster if they played in the Heineken cup and do you honestly reckon that Leinster with that backline would not be able to cut loose in the super 14? I quite like the idea of the south african teams eventually joining up with the Northern Hemisphere. The style of rugby would suit them instead of pandering to bolster John O’Neill’s attempts to keep rugby league at bay with a contrived competition like super14.

Lastly it’s obvious that the supporters do not buy into it. I was at the first match in Suncorp this year between the Reds and Cheetahs. The atmosphere was as dull as dishwater. You will never have days like we had in Croke Park three weeks ago, or Edinburgh last Saturday. Somehow I can’t see the Waratahs packing out the Olympic Stadium for a Super 14 final. It just doesn’t mean as much. Rocky Elsom has been saying as much himself the past few days.

The anecdote from stuff happens very much recalls the descriptions by Jesse Fink (at this website, of course!) of Guus Hiddink at the 2006 World Cup. He says that the great soccer coach spent most of Australia’s matches staring absent-mindedly into space, watching a different game to everyone else.

For people who are interested, there’s a lot of interesting discussion of past Lions tours with an article posted yesterday entitled “Selecting the Greatest Lions XV of all time”.

In case any of you are worried, very little of that discussion is provided by me!

OldManEmu Lions experience number two – SFS 2001. Waratahs v Lions – brother in law making debut for Tahs off the bench. Excitement all round. Fights breaking out left right and centre, Sam Harris scores a great try, Lions win a very tough and dirty game. Martin Johnson at post match function says “Thanks Tahs for taking the game up to us; we like it when it gets a bit tasty, reminds us of home” – and he was not smiling when he said it.

More gory details on ‘first lady experience’ please… Is that first love, or bedding the First Lady of the US, or first time with a ‘real lady’, or exploits in Thailand… or…?

Lions supporters will always be in good spirits but the great disappointment about 2005 was that the team played very poorly against a superb All Blacks side. Despite having a terrible mid-week team, the 1993 Lions ran New Zealand close in the Tests but 2005 didn’t really bring the same satisfaction for the Blacks because the opposition seemed to pose less of a challenge than the individual national teams. If the Lions manage to pull off a win this time then it will certainly rank as some achievement. If they lose, though, the whole mystique of the Lions will only be maintained if they manage to wipe out that memory of 2005 by posing a decent challenge and leaving behind some memories of outstanding performances.

The Lions tour of 2001 was fantastic both for the matches and the touring Lions fans. I went to the 3rd test, the Waratahs game and the Brumbies game, while watching most of the other matches from O’Malleys Irish pub in Kings Cross, which was normally full of expat British and Irish. At the end of the Year I followed the Wallabies tour up north. Lions supporters I had met in Australia actually bought me a ticket to the Twickenham match, gave me a Lions jersey, invited me to pre and post game parties in the Western lawn behind the ground, and made sure I had a good time in most cities I went to. I was introduced to Barry John in Wales, who I ended up spending many lunches with in Cardiff. I was given a tour of Arms Park, and inside the Cardiff Rugby Club’s private rugby museum. An Irish supporter I met at one match became a close friend and I was groomsman at his wedding seven years later.

I don’t think there are many sporting events in the world that promote that sort of camaraderie between opposing supporters.