Can I use that, Dean? With due acknowledgement to its author, of course.

The one thing I noticed in both SA and NZ was that the locals reacted very fiercely against the great noise and influence of the British media. At times it seemed to become a case of: “Our lads right or wrong”. That’s sport, I suppose, but it left a sour taste nonetheless.

Jerry, I’m not quite sure what you are trying to accomplish by entering the debate seemingly with the sole intention of starting a slanging match, but let’s leave it there. It’s an interesting enough topic without unnecessary and unprovoked insults clogging up the thread.

It doesn’t take a sociologist to perceive that the desperation to get one over on the Brits when the Lions come to town is an obvious consequence of colonial hang-ups. There’s a definite “atmosphere” around these series that isn’t always particularly pleasant.

I don’t believe that’s true. If they shook hands on it, and neither spoke about it, that’s the end of the matter. As the reporting headline on the story goes, O’Driscoll buries the hatchet. Story over. Move on. That’s as much a message to media, as anyone else.

I am always struck by the deep-seated immaturity of the Lions’ host countries. The behaviour of the New Zealanders in 2005 was embarrassing, and the behaviour of the South Africans in 2009 was little better. I hope that, come 2013, the Australians judge the rugby on its merits rather than view everything through the filter of “Let’s Bash The Empire”.

I think Umaga couldn’t give a flying f*** if O’Driscoll never spoke to him again, and in my opinion O’Driscoll lost waaay more credibility and respect than Umaga during that saga.

It’s that sort of pious holier than thou crap that leads people to resort to the ‘harden up’ and ‘if you can’t stand the heat…’ arguments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsXJyDHFKn0

If you criticise a player who complains of foul play you automatically get egged on and called ‘soft’. The Dan Carter incident on the weekend was an example of this. It wasn’t a dirty moment and my opinion of Carter hasn’t gone down. But it was a reckless tackle, and as Bruce Sheekly rightly said in another thread, when you throw you arm across someone’s chest like that, it’s likely it’ll slide up and hit someone around the neck. But the defensive manner of some New Zealanders over the last few days has been disappointing, and they’ve quickly started saying so much has been made out of this issue because Wales lost and they feel robbed, which is all crap.

The same thing happened when O’Driscoll was dumped on his head. New Zealanders claimed too much was being made out of it and that the Lions camp were making a fuss about it so as to deflect attention from their terrible 1st Test performance, which is utter rubbish. You can watch what happened to O’Driscoll on youtube and see he’s up-side-down and his shoulder (nearly his neck!!!) makes contact with the ground first. That’s incredibly dangerous.

Call it enthusiasim or whatever, but you have to say responsibility for being reckless.

Good on O’Driscoll for being the bigger man than Tana (who should have apologised).

Whether he should have simply said – no comment – and potentially implying that it was still festering between them, or tell that they shook hands on it and why he did it – is up for debate.

Let’s face it, two A type personalities squaring off to each other, who’s gonna blink first? There’s a pair of them in it.

The topic is dead and buried now – hopefully.

I clearly saw it too – ad nauseum thanks to the Lions PR efforts – and what I saw was two All Blacks clearing a Lions player out of a ruck, each lifting a leg of the player (as is common) as part of the clear-out method, lifting him well off the ground, and then as the ball is cleared and the game moved on, very carelessly letting him go over their shoulders – without even glancing at the player – and moving off towards the play.

To interpret this as ‘criminal’ would suggest that many such instances in a game are ‘criminal’ – for example in the same game when an All Black lock is carelessly tackled mid-air in a lineout by his opposite number and lands heavily on his back and shoulders.

What followed was a disgraceful character assassination and spin doctoring by the Lions coaching and management in general, orchestrated by Alastair Campbell to deflect from the pathetic display by the Lions, who had already lost to the Maori.

It appears that Brian’s self serving personality is brought to the fore again; why would he feel the need to share this with the media if he was “being the bigger man”?