Losing graciously, a lesson for the Lions

 
The Crowd Roar Guru

By Etienne, 1 Jul 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Guru

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On Saturday, the Springboks clinched the series against the Lions. Since then, we’ve heard from the Lions how unlucky they’ve been, how the refs haven’t helped them, and how Schalk should have been red carded for eye gouging.

Here’s what we haven’t heard from the Lions: congratulations South Africa. You outplayed us for 60 minutes in the first Test and held on in the last 20 minutes for the win. You showed great resilience and skill to come back from 19-8 in the second Test to win it in extra time.

As a result, they’ve left a sour taste in what is supposed to be a great Lions tour (to be fair, Peter de Villiers hasn’t helped either with some of his comments).

I’m not saying there isn’t truth in some of what they’re saying.

But I believe one should be gracious in defeat, no matter how last minute or heartbreaking it may be. All we’ve heard from the Lions (and the majority of British press) so far are excuses.

So come on Lions, stop the whingeing and offer congratulations where they are due.

On a side note, I’d like to see SANZAR suspend the Tri Nations on the years of the Lions tour and organise tours between the two SANZAR countries not playing the Lions that year.

In other words, in 2013, when the Lions tour Australia, I’d like to see Australia focus 100 per cent on the Lions and have South Africa and New Zealand have back and forth tours (maybe two Tests in each country, possibly a fifth somewhere neutral like London?)

I’d also like to see them suspend the Tri Nations in World Cup years.

At the moment we have Tri Nations every year. So what if you don’t win this year, you’ll get another shot next year. But if the Tri Nations was played only every second year, that would add a lot more weight to it.

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