This Sporting Life
Created | Updated Jul 11, 2003
This week we welcome a guest writer as Abi takes a break
British and Irish Lions tour... an Australian perspective
For the last month or so Australia has been temporarily invaded by a red horde. However it was neither the historically feared armies of the Chinese or Russians, but a rather more benevolent army, that of the British and Irish Lions supporters.
The east coast of Australia has been awash with red wearing, rugby loving, beer drinking , and singing types from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England as they followed the Lions around for the three tests against the world champion Australians.
The Lions had not been in Australia since 1989, and I must say I don't remember there being the same massive influx of supporters last time around. It may have something to do with rugby now being a professional sport or the standing of the current Australian team in this television age. Perhaps it had something to do with not many of the four teams being able to beat the Australians on their own, or that our dollar is worth about the same as a politicians integrity. Whatever it was, possibly a combination of all these factors, Lions supporters were to be found here in their tens of thousands.
With one notable exception, I would like to congratulate them all on the way they behaved and invite then to come back at any time. Their passion, singing, good humour and sportsmanship (did I mention beer drinking?) was a pleasure to behold.
As for the games themselves; in the first test the Lions gave the complacent Australians an absolute hiding. The Lions started the second test like they had played the first, totally dominating possession and making huge inroads through the midfield defence of the Australians. However, they could not score points and this was to come back and haunt them. The Australians scored an early intercept try and put on a rugby lesson of their own for the rest of the second half, running out convincing winners.
Thus to Sydney for the decider. I was lucky enough to obtain a ticket, even if it was so high up that I would have had to duck if a plane flew overhead. What a game !!! The lead changed hands at least five times during the match and ended with the Lions desperate last attacking raid been snuffed out 5 metres from the try line, after the bell. The Australians had won by six points 29-23, beating the Lions for the first time in 104 years of trying.
The Lions will be rueing some missed chances and bad options out wide although, to be fair, the Wallabies also bombed a certain try. The Lions supporters were temporarily dumbfounded but were sportsmanlike to the end.
By now they will have all realised that their four countries actually hate each other, but all is not lost. The Scottish, Irish and Welsh supporters can say there were too many Englishmen in the team, and the English can say there weren't enough...
As for the one person not welcome back, there are no prizes for guessing who that is. Prize goose Austin Healey who, on the day of the test, decided to bag just about all things Australian, including the weather for heavens sake, in an outrageous English newspaper article. His cowardly personal attack on one of the Australian players who he called an "ape", "plod" and "plank" could quite easily have been that extra half a percent motivation the Australians needed to make the difference.
Austin then managed to pull out of the match with a heartlige complaint. It would not surprise me if, when the Lions arrive back home, he is nowhere to be found, having been killed by his team mates and buried somewhere in the bowels of the Olympic stadium.
Certainly, no one in Australia would have blamed them, and neither, I suspect, would the vast majority of Lions supporters.
