The Lions comeback sets up a terrific second Test

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 22 Jun 2009 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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Not long after half-time when the Springboks set a 35m rolling maul and then forced a try to take a 26 – 7 lead over the British and Irish Lions, it looked like all the pundits and experts (including Warren Gatland, an assistant Lions coach) were correct in allotting favouritism to the home side.

Then the several things happened which turned the Test and almost enabled the Lions to snatch a miraculous victory.

Lions coach Ian McGeechan gave Phil Vickery, the burly England prop, the hook. Vickery left the field with the bewildered and defensive look of a man who had been mugged so expertly he still wasn’t sure of what had been taken from him.

In this case it was his reputation as a great scrummer by the unlikely Tendia Mtawarira (‘the Beast’), a prop more noted for his barging runs than his scrum skills.

Adam Jones came on as Vickery’s replacement and immediately the Lions scrum steadied. And with the steady scrum and the drying up of scrum penalties to the Springboks, the Lions found and began to execute their game plan. Time after time their centres, the burly Jamie Roberts and the pugnacious master Brian O’Driscoll, carved through and set up tries and penalty shots.

Peter de Villiers, the flaky Springboks coach, around the same time began to start taking off the heart of the pack, Mtawarira, Heinrich Brussow, Bakkies Botha, and John Smit. It was as if the coach was trying to warehouse these players for the next Test.

The Lions roared back.

And it was some seeming gamesmanship that allowed John Smit to come back on to the field when the Springboks were desperately defending their 26 – 21 lead that steadied the home side.

Dion Carsten’s injury seemed to be very well timed. Smit, who is an excellent captain who saved the Springboks in the hectic last minutes of the quarter-final against a rampant Fiji in the Rugby World Cup of 2007, settled his side this time, as well.

Despite their magnificent lineout, with Victor Matfield now in the John Eales class as a lineout jumper and poacher, and their strong scrum, the Springboks gained only 32 per cent of the territorial possession and did not go through seven phases at any stage in the Test. The Lions had seven seven-phase sections of play.

More importantly, they cut the Springbok defences many times in the Test from their first attacking scrum when Ugo Monye was robbed of a try by a superb tackle and flip of the ball by Jean de Villiers.

Monye lost another try, too, when the ball was knocked out of his inside arm (when it should have been held on the outside) near the tryline by Jacques Fourie.

When the Springboks smashed the Lions scrum, over-powered the Lions rucks and mauls and then launched their 35m maul (the best since England’s epic 45m rumble at Melbourne against the Wallabies in 2003). I must admit I had a frisson of pleasure wondering how the northern hemisphere blowhards who denigrate southern hemisphere forward play were now feeling.

The criticism of the New Zealand referee, Bryce Lawrence, was so muted by the usual British press suspects you realised that they must have recognised that his rulings were correct.

I cannot forget an occasion in Sydney some years ago when, after a Test against England, I came into a room of British journalists who were discussing among each other how to write up their leads on how appalling the referee had been. Clearly, the cabal was not operating this time.

This was one Test, anyway, where the Lions players can only blame themselves for their defeat. They allowed the Springboks to intimidate them early on. They gave away an early soft try. Then they conceded too many kickable penalties. Stephen Jones missed a couple of penalties in return. Their scrum was pulverised. And tries were butchered by poor skills.

To be honest, as well, when the Springboks went to their big lead I thought that the Lions were done. But to their credit they came back. Towards the end of the Test they got themselves into a position where it could have been snatched away from the Springboks. The return of Smit and a botched lineout by the Lions finally killed off a magnificent comeback.

Where does this leave the series?

The conventional wisdom before the Test was that if the Springboks won the first Test they would go on to win the next two Tests at altitude to take out a 3 – 0 wipeout. The theory behind this was that the Springboks would get better as they got more match practice and the Lions challenge would fizzle out if it was not immediately successful.

The British media is now pushing a new line that in 1989 the Lions lost their first Test against the Wallabies, and then won the next two Tests. The Lions coach on that tour? A certain Mr Ian McGeechan.

McGeechan is being seen as the master coach who has won more important matches than any other coach (something I’d contest). But there is no doubting that McGeechan has prepared this Lions side very well, and has won two series as the Lions coach, something that no other coach has achieved.

In the last 20 minutes the Lions looked to have the Springboks at their mercy which few pundits (if any, and certainly not me) had predicted.

They had also saved the Lions franchise.

For before the Test there were suggestions that if the Lions were thrashed the point of the Lions existing, which is based on the hopes of their fans that they will be successful, would disappear.

Now, though, we are now set for an intriguing second Test, and for a continuation of future tours no matter what happens for the rest of this tour.

Will the Springboks improve and be dominant at altitude? Or will the Lions, seemingly a fitter side than the Springboks and with much better skills in the backs, win the Test and set themselves for an unlikely series victory?

Pretoria on Saturday holds the answers to these questions.

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