WHEN it comes to setting your team up for a fall, there is no media quite like South Africa’s. The slagging off of the 2021 Lions did not take long, with veteran skipper Alun Wyn Jones being called an overhyped ‘Captain Plod’ and head coach Warren Gatland criticised for picking a bunch of ‘hobbits to be giant slayers’.
The architect of these jibes is South African rugby writer Mark Keohane, who has a reputation as a serial sledger stretching back as far as the 1997 Lions tour. He was in the vanguard as Martin Johnson’s tourists were on the receiving end almost as soon as they stepp...