All Blacks (almost) always come out firing for Test finale
The Lions will return to Auckland from their Queenstown break this week full of hope and expectation but they need to keep it real as the excitement mounts. They still have a mountain to climb. Only once, in 1959 when the series had long gone, have the Lions won the final Test against New Zealand. Invariably it has proved a bridge too far
Back in 2005 the Lions actually did no worse than in the previous two Tests and the 38-19 defeat at a sodden Auckland represented a plucky enough effort although they were still outclassed by some distance. The tour had long ‘gone’ and the inquests were already being written. It was very much the administering of the last rites.
Twelve years earlier the build up to the match had been so different and yet the end result so familiar. In 1993 the final Test was a much anticipated series decider after the Lions had stormed to a record 20-7 win at Wellington in the second Test.
Everything pointed to a tense deciding game in Auckland. The All Blacks had sneaked a win in the first Test, the Lions had bounced back and now all to play for. But slowly and steadily it started to all go pear-shaped for the Lions.
The last wholly amateur tour in Lions history – although the 97 team never held back socially – the 1993 tourists put in some plucky work with the elbow after that win in the second Test. The Dirt Trackers were distinctly demob happy when they lined up against Waikato at Hamilton four days before the deciding Test.
The result was a catastrophically bad and humiliating 38-10 defeat in which the Lions’ best two players were probably the injured Will Carling and Richard Webster, who were only playing to obviate the need for those earmarked for the Test to play.
The Lions bubble burst. Confidence and morale must have taken something of a hammering. Meanwhile the All Blacks, hiding away in training without any distractions up in Auckland, had gone back to basics and were working overtime on line-out and scrum which they believed had let them down in Wellington.
It was a very different All Blacks that turned up for the third Test and despite going 10-0 early on to a converted Scott Gibbs try and a Gavin Hastings penalty the Lions scarcely got a look-in thereafter as New Zealand crunched up through the gears to score three tries and win 30-3.
The Lions misery was palpable. But for a shocking refereeing call in the last minute of the first Test they would have already spent the last week celebrating a series win. Fine margins.
The 1983 tour ended badly. An outclassed side had hung on grimly for three Tests and although they had lost all three, the Lions had conceded just four tries.
Then, orchestrated by an allsinging, all-dancing Ian Dunn at fly-half they ran in six tires with Stu Wilson scoring a hat-trick. Dunn only ever played three Tests for the All Blacks, the talent that scarcely gets a look in down there is unbelievable.
Six years earlier it was heartbreak for the 1977 Lions who, despite bossing proceedings up front in the first three Tests somehow managed to find themselves down 2-1 down going into the final encounter. Right to the end they continued to dominate the All Blacks’ forwards who once famously resorted to three man scrums – but their inability to convert pressure into points proved costly and their luck remained lousy to the end.
Leading 9-6 going into injury time, a harmless looking kick ahead from Bill Osborne bounced unpredictably to cause chaos in the Lions defence for Lawrie Knight to pounce and sprint 15 yards to clinch a possibly ill-deserved New Zealand win.
It was even a damned closed run thing in 1971 when John Dawes’ triumphant team so nearely fell at the last. After the joy of winning the third Test in Wellington to take a 2-1 lead came the realisation that there was still work to do. A drawn series 2-2 simply would not be good enough, that would seem like defeat after all their hard work, they had to somehow raise a head of steam one final time. Easier said than done.
For reasons that nobody concerned can ever quite remember Barry John and Bob Hiller spent half an hour after the final training session before the game teaching JPR Williams how to kick a dropped goal. The great Welshman had never even tried one in his senior career before.
Come the game and New Zealand were spoiling for a fight and the game and series – was poised at 11-11 ten minutes into the second half when David Duckham flung a loose ball into midfield and John Dawes moved it onto Williams who was 45 yards out and straight in front of the posts.
Willams didn’t hesitate as he smashed the ball high between the posts – it would have been over from 55 yards – and as he turned he raised a fist of salute to his kicking tutor in chief Hiller in the stands. It was an important moment. The All Blacks pressed for the best part of half an hour but the only score they could manged was a penalty by Lawrie Mains. The Lions had won the series 2-1 with one match drawn, just as their manager Doug Smith had predicted at their training camp in Eastbourne nearly four months earlier.
It is the 1959 tourists who can point to the only ever Lions win in the final test of a series against New Zealand. The most unlucky of all touring parties they had dazzled the New Zealand crowds and, but for poor luck and rank bad reffing, they could easily have won the first two Tests.
Well beaten in the third Test, the Lions somehow stirred themselves in the final weeks of the tour and in the final Test three of their stand-outs – Peter Jackson, Tony O’Reilly and Bev Risman crossed – as the Lions went into a 9-6 lead. Right at the death Don Clarke had a kick to level the score but for once the great full-back was off target and the Lions got the victory they deserved.