I suppose it was cos I knew the okes at the Irish Examiner would be giving my SA friends there a bit of stick if we lost, but also because of the hype around the whole tour.
A while back Supersport.co.za did a vote - would you rather beat the Lions and finish bottom of the Tri-Nations or, would you rather lose to the Lions but win the Tri-Nations? Over 60% said they'd take a loss to the Lions. Simply put, the Tri-Nations is more important to most fans. I found this surprising, I mean, a Lions tour only comes around every 12 years. But I suppose the answer is also apparent in the stands: These Lions games have been very badly attended. I would go so far as to say that it has almost been like the Boks have been playing away.
This is not only down to lack of interest, but the harsh price of tickets, which to your average Brit (or Irishman) is simply ice-cream money. Locals can't afford tickets and, rather than seeing overpriced hype, can wait for the quality of the Tri-Nations for a fraction of the price.
The way I look at it, four countries combined should be thumping the opposition, not losing 3-0 to New Zealand or losing matches in SA.
I know a lot of people thought the SA provincial teams would thump the Lions though, and this was just silly. The best of four countries versus the B sides (all the Springboks taken out) of the provinces! Come on. That many of the sides came close was good, but the results should never have been in any doubt.
It was great to see the Springboks beat the Lions and silence any doubters about the strength of the game in the southern hemisphere.
Obviously we know how strong it is, we play in the Tri-Nations every year, but had the Lions won the series, we would have heard the same argument that we heard after the French beat the Kiwis at the World Cup - that they are just as good as us, that their domestic competitions somehow compare, etc, etc - as if a forward pass match-winning try suddenly means that the northern hemisphere are better than the Kiwis!
Then in the second Test, we went 10-0 down when down to 14 men cos of Schalk's brain-freeze and missed about 11 points with the boot. Thank God for potty-mouth O'Gara. Another interesting article I found about him...
http://www.supersport.com/rugby/columns.aspx?id=7802&headline=What%20goes%20around%20comes%20around
But as re the series, we certainly made it tougher than we should have....
In the first Test, when leading by about 19 points, we took off five of our players to give the others a chance, probably thinking we had the game won. Well that almost cost us but it should never have been that close. Reading the comments on the bbc.co.uk/sport 606 webpage, you would have thought the Boks were the lucky ones. People bemoaning the ref, bemoaning selections, bemoaning the inexperience of their own team.
In the first Test, when leading by about 19 points, we took off five of our players to give the others a chance, probably thinking we had the game won. Well that almost cost us but it should never have been that close. Reading the comments on the bbc.co.uk/sport 606 webpage, you would have thought the Boks were the lucky ones. People bemoaning the ref, bemoaning selections, bemoaning the inexperience of their own team.
Then in the second Test, we went 10-0 down when down to 14 men cos of Schalk's brain-freeze and missed about 11 points with the boot. Thank God for potty-mouth O'Gara.
http://www.supersport.com/rugby/columns.aspx?id=7802&headline=What%20goes%20around%20comes%20around
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