RUGBY LIONS TOUR:IN HIS final Sunday morning medical bulletin of his fifth Lions tour, the squad's head doctor, Dr James Robson, warned of the increasingly dangerous physical toll being exerted on modern day rugby players.
Confirming that Matthew Rees was the latest to suffer concussion, along with the usual quota of bumps and bruises, Robson said: “This tour has been incredibly physical. Most of the accidents and injuries were as a result of physical contact, both in and out of competition. I can only measure it anecdotally and subjectively from my view but I would have to say this has been the most physical tour, the most physical Test matches I have been involved in.”
While crediting the conditioning of the players, Robson hoped that player welfare will become a bigger part of player management. “Personally I would like a slightly longer tour with less frequent games. I agree, it is perverse. I am saying there should be less games for the players but I don’t want to lessen the Lions tours. Maybe it should be eight games over eight weeks. I don’t necessarily think a compacted period is a detriment to the players if over the year they have less games.
“I think we are reaching a level where the players have got too big for their skill levels,” he warned. “I think they have become a little too muscle-bound and too bulky. I think you may see changes in the physical nature of the player that brings them back a little – I hope so – in order to speed up the game and introduce a higher level of skill.”
One ventures that heads will be sorer than bodies today and tomorrow as the players and staff enjoyed each other’s company prior to departing Johannesburg yesterday. And it will have been altogether more enjoyable for having made Saturday’s last stand.
“If we had lost today it would have been a disaster,” admitted Tommy Bowe. “For us to be able to salvage anything we had to win today. You just see smiles on faces and I’ve made friends here now that I’ll meet in 10/20 years time and we can instantly reflect on so many funny things that went on.”
Seemingly the cult hero amongst Lions fans, Bowe adapted superbly to an emergency outside centre role in Ellis Park to complete a memorable tour for him personally. “There’s stuff there that I’ll remember for ever. I had the crowd bloody chanting my name when I got to a bar or on the side of the pitch. I’m trying to concentrate but I hear all these ‘Tom-my, Tommy Bowe, Tom-my, Tommy Bowe’. I think there’s about three songs. I then I hear my dad’s, ‘Dad-dy, Daddy Bowe’. It’s been a great experience. People talking about bonding on tours and how difficult it is to bring four countries together, but this tour, for me, it’s been anything but difficult.”
Jamie Heaslip was the third Test’s unofficial man of the match. Everything he did, he did with pace, power and intelligence, but hogging some of the limelight is not his bag. Putting his performance in perspective, he said: “I know I just got a lot more touches, that was it. People were saying was I annoyed not to be on the ball more but to be honest, it doesn’t really bother me. Sometimes the moments come for you, sometimes they don’t. I’m happy as long as the team does well and if I have to do a bit of “horsey” work that’s fine by me.
“In the first two Tests I didn’t get much ball and I had to get into the nitty-gritty and that’s fine. Sometimes games go for you like this week and I got a good bit of ball. I still think I was sometimes putting myself into positions, but that’s just the nature of the game.”
And at least his season ends on winning note? “That’s it. You play this game to win, you don’t play to lose or draw. It’s coming off the pitch with those boys. We’ve had highs and serious lows on this tour, we’ve bonded in such a good way, we’ve made some great friends and I’m actually going on holidays with some of these boys. Even for the guys who weren’t in the 22, to walk off the pitch with them – it was just brilliant.”
Shane Williams had been elusively searching for his mojo, and – in a microcosm of the Lions’ tour – now that he’d found it only made the rediscovery all the more maddening. Still, he could smile. “It was one of my best performances. I wanted to go out with a bang in my last chance in a Lions jersey. I know I haven’t been playing to my potential and the frustrating thing is that after this game I know what I’ve been doing wrong.”
He acknowledged the debt owed to Heaslip for providing the catalyst. “To be fair to him, that was great vision by Jamie,” admitted the double try-scorer. “I thought he had one of the greatest games I’ve seen him play. He was dogged, he got involved in all the rucks, he carried the ball well and it was a great pass for me. Maybe a silent hero tonight. He’s been playing well all tour really and you expect no different from Jamie.”
Rob Kearney also put the win in eloquent perspective when saying: “We could have been down and allowed ourselves to be humiliated but I don’t really think that was an option; the Springboks might have thought it would happen but we certainly didn’t.
“We could have been beaten and beaten pretty badly but that wasn’t what this squad stood for. There was a huge pride and a huge determination to ensure we won; we had a duty to teams of the past and future to ensure that honour was upheld.”
John Smit and Pieter de Villiers struck suitably humble and charitable tones afterwards, never wavering from their mantra that simply the better team won. “They had more intensity and certainly more rhythm today,” admitted Smit. “So, an effective victory and richly deserved. It makes us appreciate the series win that much more against a top Lions side.”
A bittersweet day for both camps then.
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