AFTER another hard fought Lions series defeat to South Africa, 1997 series-winning Lion and World Cup hero Matt Dawson gives Adam Ellis his verdict on the tour…
So just as the case was 12 years ago, the series was decided by the boot of Morne Steyn. Do you feel the Boks deserved it?
Yes, on the whole the Boks deserved it. Whoever wins the series deserves it. You don’t win them by pure fluke. You might have the odd bit of luck come your way, but rarely do you win a series like a Lions tour without deserving it.
Unfortunately for the Lions in the last Test match, they made some decisions that did not go their way. You wouldn’t have said they were definitely going to come back to bite them, but their choice not to kick for goal on the occasions they could have were certainly big calls. Sometimes they come off, sometimes they don’t.
There are very few games of that intensity, like a World Cup final or Lions tour deciders, the biggest kind of games you can have in the sport, where kicking to the corner actually works.
I know it did on one occasion for Ken Owens, but look at what not taking the gettable penalties ended up costing the Lions.
The scoreline didn’t get to a stage where it forced South Africa to play a different way, they didn’t get out of arm’s reach and South Africa are always difficult in an arm wrestle.
Do you think the Lions were chasing a big lead early on or simply backing their maul in the third Test?
The methodology behind kicking to the corner was purely down to the players and how they felt things were going on the pitch. Unless you have been in that environment, you can’t second guess where the momentum is, or the ways of the referee, the edges that you can take. That is all something the players will have felt themselves.
The thing is, it is more commonplace to kick to the corner now. It is deemed to be more positive and unfortunately at that level it is an opportunity for the other team to show they can defend. South Africa showed they are very happy to defend on their five-metre line as well as on half-way.
The Lions looked a different beast after the introduction of Finn Russell. Do you feel he is judged unfairly for not being a typical game-managing No.10?
I have a very simple answer. It is not about Finn Russell fitting into the team and him having to temper his own game. It is there for anyone to see that you have to up your own game to get on Finn Russell’s level. He is a proper player.
He has elite rugby players around him, it has made him even better. They understand and read the game and share the same sixth sense that Russell holds.
I thought he was in his element. Take New Zealand, Australia or South Africa, they would all have him in a heartbeat in their team. And he wouldn’t be called a ‘maverick’, he would be called a ‘great’. But we call him a maverick here and it is utter rubbish.
He is a brilliant player and the sooner we realise we need to embrace players like that and let them run the game the better.
Everything was working, even at that intensity, and I think the Third Test will have helped him realise he needs to knuckle down and play like that every week.
After all the shenanigans that have been going on over the last two or three years, hopefully this match will give him a wake-up call to say to himself ‘I can play at the highest level’. He just needs to have the attitude he showed in the Lions camp when it comes to play for Scotland and for Racing 92.
Do you think similar assumptions are unfair on Marcus Smith given the season he has had, with doubts over whether he could defend against Damian de Allende?
In a couple of years he will be there. Marcus Smith has proven he has got great game management; of course he will make a couple of errors, but he is a young lad and people are comparing him to Danny Cipriani.
I think he is a very different player to that. He has a very different outlook on rugby and life in general. At the moment, he is miles ahead of any other fly-half in England and has proven he can play in a Lions tour. He didn’t play in the Test series, but to wear the red jersey and be around all those great players, he is only going to get better and better.
Talents like his are where we want the game to go. We don’t want the game to become a boring kicking and territorial spectacle. The Second Test of the series was dull, so dull. I was getting very fed up of hearing ex-players say ‘it was one for the purists’. I’m sorry but the purists hated it – it was utter rubbish to watch compared to the Third Test.
Knowing Gregor Townsend from your time at Northampton together, how much influence do you think he had on this tour? Or did Warren Gatland still hold sway over the attack?
Selection limited the way the Lions played. From all accounts, Gats was very welcoming to other coaches’ ideas on selection. From what I can gather, it was a general consensus of opinion and Gats wasn’t there trying to persuade everybody.
The key position up for discussion in hindsight will be fly-half. The what if of whether Finn Russell could have had a greater say if he wasn’t injured.
They made a big call to bring Marcus Smith over because of the way he plays.
There is a part of me that thinks if Finn Russell was fit, he would have started the First Test. They saw that as a way to play the game. Maybe that will come out in the wash in the months or years to come.
Some years have now passed since your own experience touring South Africa with the Lions in 1997. Tell me about the way in which you became aware you were on Sir Ian McGeechan’s radar?
You are notified you are in a pre-squad and we all had to trek up to Birmingham to get fitted out for suits just in case we were selected – that was all very exciting. It was a matter of nailing every single game you had left in the season and, in fact, every training session I had Ian McGeechan there coaching me. I was fortunate to be playing a style of rugby at Northampton that he wanted to implement with the Lions and that gave me a huge advantage.
You end up getting your letter saying you’re on the radar, you have a few sleepless nights, chatting to your teammates and international teammates about any hints they’ve heard.
Funnily enough in 2005, Clive Woodward actually phoned me and told me I was in the squad before it was announced. It was a massive weight off my shoulders – in 1997, it was a case of not being able to stop thinking about it. You feel like you are being assessed the whole time.
Clive then asked me about other scrum-halves. It wasn’t a case of me saying which players should go, but he was interested in my take on other scrum-halves and their strengths and weaknesses.
■ Matt Dawson was speaking in conjunction with William Hill
