SOUTH AFRICA vs BRITISH & IRISH LIONS
First Test, Saturday July 31st, 5pm
South Africa @ 19/20
Draw @ 20/1
British & Irish Lions @ EVS
view odds
Doubtless the Lions will invoke the spirit of their 1997 equivalents in a bid to seal the series. The visitors won the first test in Cape Town back in the 20th century. Just as they did less than a week ago. But this time the Lions will not be leaving Cape Town. There’s a lost spirit of adventure that goes with life on the rugby road but from the perspective of the test matches, the visitors will benefit from an established camp.
The management can invoke the bravery and heroism all they want but a repeat of anything but the result will see the series levelled one apiece. South Africa battered the 1997 Lions. 3 tries to nil and it could have been half a dozen had it not been for almost otherworldly defence inspired by 80 minutes of intensity from Lawrence Dallaglio and a sequence of psychological body blows provided by Scott Gibbs.
There’s no doubt it was the stuff of legend. I watched the game during Sky’s warm up to the first test. Sound down! Yet for all the warm feelings, the truth is that the Lions were forced to concede enough penalties to lose the game twice over. It took one of the worst displays of test match goal kicking from Percy Montgomery – a nervous centre who would atone a decade later with an immaculate performance for his country throughout the 2007 World Cup.
There won’t be a repeat. If the Lions keep conceding penalties, Handre Pollard will kick the vast majority as he did in a first half that gives a few more clues as to what might happen than the magical memories of 2021.
Pollard is a clue in his own right. One of the world’s best fly halves, especially in the big game environment, he has endured an awful build up to the series with a combination of long term injuries sustained with Montpellier, catching Covid in camp and being part of a squad whose preparation was savagely disrupted.
Whether he will be that much fitter or not with only a week’s extra time, I don’t know, but what people are not picking up is that the Springboks will be much sharper. The bits and pieces will be better. All the split second stuff that makes so much difference. If the dominant first half performance is tweaked, the Lions could find themselves too far behind at half time for another fight back.
Siya Kolisi, the Springbok captain, is a man of immeasurable importance and dignity to his team but, purely as a player, there are better open sides. Playing with a lot less than match sharpness left him some way off the pace. Against Tom Curry, who will work hard on cutting out his penalties, he has to find another gear. But with a test match under his belt, he might just do that.
The Lions have a series lead but I am less certain that all the momentum is with them, despite their strong second half showing. Last Saturday was a long time ago. The world champions kept their best props for the second half and neither Steven Kitshoff nor Frans Malherbe made much of an impact against a Lions scrum with Mako Vunipola, also on the field as a substitute, defying those of us who felt he could not live with the Springbok scrum. One half doesn’t make a Fran Cotton as this newly made up saying of mine goes.
It will be a battle in that front row from the first scrum. It will be a furious scrap in the line out as well. It is worth remembering that, even as the Lions took control of the second half, Eben Etzebeth appeared to find the key to destabilising Luke Cowan-Dickie. I will be surprised if more pressure is not applied from the first throw in.
Warren Gatland’s selection suggests he expects a storm in the opening forty minutes. Ali Price played as well as could be expected last weekend. His pass was sharp, his kicking good. Yet he has lost the Number 9 berth to the perceived out of form Conor Murray. The Irishman has a great box kicking game and, rarely mentioned in the build up, an ability to put off his opponent. The Lions need to get to Faf every bit as much as South Africa to expect their blonde dynamo to irritate his opposing number. It’s not a bold selection but it is shrewd.
Nor was it bold to drop Elliot Daly for the more industrious Chris Harris. I thought it was a rare Gatland selection mistake to start the first test with Daly. So it proved. The Lions are unlikely to play across the face of the Springbok midfield defence. With Jack Conan’s footwork so clever from the base of the scrum and Robbie Henshaw running hard lines at inside centre, the Lions look set to hammer hard around the fringes and utilise the kicking game of their half backs (with Owen Farrell, my guess, joining the fray at 12 in the last half hour or so of action.)
In 2017 Farrell and Sexton combined well to push the All Blacks deep. It is a risky repeat because Farrell is so far from any kind of form that he’s as liable to cost his team as kick the Springboks into parts of the pitch from where they cannot harm the Lions. The Daly gamble backfired last week; it could be that Farrell’s form from the bench will swing what looks set to be the tightest of games one way or the other.
