ON TOUR:OUCH! WHAT a kick in the pants! In the midst of all the agonising, the endless replays on "one-eyed" (pardon me) South African TV, the concluding phrase of any Irish armchair panel here is "Nobody died". Of course we all know that isn't exactly true. In fact I've always found that phrase a bit inadequate.

Lots of people have died and by the looks of things several Lions would have if the Boks had had their way, but it certainly does feel like a tragedy occurred in Pretoria last Saturday.

Three months before this game, the most physically intense battle I’ve ever witnessed, many of the same players stood on opposite sides of the Millennium Stadium posts and watched Stephen Jones miss the kick that allowed Ireland to the Grand Slam. This time, though, the outcome was decided by the boot of a different specimen altogether.

There were a host of unique incidents in this epic encounter. A player sent to the sin bin within a minute, the Lions losing both props, both centres and ultimately a match they had spent most of the 80 minutes leading.

In our pre-match build-up we chatted to Springbok legends Joel Stransky, Naas Botha and Bobby Skinstad about the likelihood of a Lions victory and all were adamant that the Boks would not and could not lose.

Skinstad pointed out he’d been with the Boks most of the week and he’d rarely seen a team so highly motivated. When Botha was asked why no South African seemed capable of suggesting that “Boka” might lose, he said simply: “Because we are better.”

A further example of the kind of modesty for which they’re renowned, says you. “Do you play within the rules of the game?” I asked Skinstad, to which he replied: “Oh yes, no doubt. (Pause and smile) But it is a physical game.”

So in the first minute, when I thought I saw an enormous blond chap in a green jersey sticking his fingers into his opponent’s eyes, it was actually that lovely, gentle Schalk Burger doing Luke Fitzgerald a favour by attempting to polish his corneas with his finger-nails. The incident has been well covered at this stage, but it led to another moment of Laurel and Hardy officiating, when in a reprise of their mis-communication during the first Test, assistant referee Bryce Lawrence told the clearly unsighted (pardon me again) referee Christophe Berdos that it was “at least a yellow”.

Now what does that actually mean? Bright yellow? Really yellow? A yellow and a kick in the backside? How was Berdos supposed to interpret that? As he did, by not reacting too harshly to something he hadn’t witnessed. Surely if it’s a red-card offence it’s irrelevant at what stage of the match it occurs?

The moment of the match, however, had to be O’Driscoll’s impression of a human missile which knocked himself and Danie Russow temporarily on to another planet.

At the Springboks press conference this week Peter de Villiers achieved the remarkable feat of making Steve Staunton sound like Barack Obama. Having said that he saw the incident and that it wasn’t even a yellow, he got himself in an awful twist about not commenting on it until he received the citing officer’s report.

Then he said: “I’m not going to speak about Schalk,” followed rapidly by, “But I don’t believe Schalk did it.” Eddie O’Sullivan in disguise perhaps?

He was just short of saying “Schalk was only going for the ball. The eyeball.”

The after-match festivities at Loftus Versfeld was no place to be if you were a shell-shocked Lion. Part of our job here is to get post-match reaction, but almost every time we were in mid-chat a green-clad supporter would run up, stick his face in the camera and shout something like “How do you kill a Lion? Slowly. Ha ha!”

As Ian McGeechan approaches the last match of the tour with his list of wounded growing by the day, his team announcement for Saturday may well go something like this. “We have been rather unfortunate on this tour. Aside from the injuries to Tomás O’Leary, Jerry Flannery, Stephen Ferris, Tom Shanklin, Leigh Halfpenny, Euan Murray and Lee Byrne, this is our current list of casualties. Brian O’Driscoll (concussion), Jamie Roberts (wrist), Ronan O’Gara (eye), Adam Jones (dislocated shoulder), Gethin Jenkins (broken head). We were going to play Gordon D’Arcy and Riki Flutey in the centre, but we’ve just heard they’ve collided in training and are unavailable.

“Also we were going to play Andrew Sheridan and John Hayes in the frontrow, but unfortunately they’ve simultaneously slipped in the bath and cracked their coccyxs. So Donncha O’Callaghan and Nathan Hines will play in the centre, with Shane Williams and Harry Ellis as props. Looking forward to it (Gulp!).”

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