“I would certainly expect the Scots on tour to do very well. They need to suck it all up and take it all in”

Rugby legend looking forward to South Africa series but says he’ll be watching on TV for the first time in 32 years

GAVIN HASTINGS looks ahead to today’s Lions match and reveals he’ll be watching on TV for the first time in 32 years.

For the first time since 1989, Gavin Hastings will not be joining the Lions tour. The venerable former full-back will be stuck at home in Edinburgh, glued to the television screen as the action unfolds in South Africa.

In these Covid times he had little option. The Lions, who kick off the tour against the Emirates Lions in Johannesburg this evening, will spend the trip in a bio-secure bubble, leaving only to play matches in front of what are likely to be empty stands.

There will be no travelling fans and most probably no home ones either.

For Hastings, part of the victorious tour to Australia in 1989 and then a proud captain in New Zealand four years later, it is tough to take and his heart goes out to players denied the full Lions adventure. “Och, the Lions are just momentous and in a way I feel sorry it is not going to be the experience it has been in the recent past,” he said.

“Since my first days as a Lion in 1989 – well 1986 actually – it’s just been part of my life every four years. I’ve been on every Lions tour since 1989, so obviously this is going to be a bit different.

“I’ve been very lucky to work with sponsors, or on television or radio, so there has always been a reason for me to go and follow the Lions and, as a former captain, I’ve always been very very keen to do that.

“You realise how special it is when you’re on a Lions tour and it is very exciting.

“But obviously this time we ain’t going anywhere. We will be here at home watching it on television like everybody else.”

Although 1989 was his first tour, Hastings got a taste of the Lions three years earlier when he played for them against a Rest of the World XV in Wales.

The match was to celebrate the centenary of the International Rugby Football Board and ‘The Rest’ – a team made up of players from Australia, France, New Zealand and South Africa – won 15-7.

“It was a one off Test match in Cardiff,” Hastings explained of his Lions debut. “We should have gone to South Africa at that time, but obviously it was right in the midst of apartheid and the tour was called off. And then, all of a sudden, we got to hear a Lions team was going to be selected to play against the Rest of the World.

“That was exciting in its own right, but obviously nothing like the experience of going on a Lions tour.” Hastings, who had made his Scotland debut alongside brother Scott against France earlier that year, had only five caps to his name before making his Lions bow and found himself up against luminaries such as Serge Blanco, Michael Lynagh, John Kirwan, Wayne Smith, Nick Farr-jones and Murray Mexted. It was an intoxicating experience and he would go on to cement his status as a legendary Lion in Australia three years later as part of the only Lions squad to win a series after losing the opening Test match, an achievement which still leaves him slightly perplexed.

“Yes it’s strange in a way and I’m surprised at that, but I suppose it just shows it takes a hell of a lot out of you to win a Test match. And to back it up the following week is pretty tough as well.”

The Lions of 1989, coached by Ian Mcgeechan and captained by Finlay Calder, are revered now as rugby greats but, as Hastings explains, they were a callow bunch.

“There were only two players in that squad who had ever toured with the Lions before, to New Zealand in ’83, and that was Bob Norster and Donal Lenihan, both second rows,” said Hastings, a Land Rover ambassador. “Can you imagine having only two previous tourists?

“So it was like a new start for all of us. None of us was really aware of what was happening and we just took to it like ducks to water and really embraced the concept of the Lions.

“We just loved it, got a bit of momentum and kept winning all our games leading up to the first Test and then all of a sudden we were hit with this thunderbolt against the Australia team and were absolutely mullered.

“That was a real wake-up call for us all and I suppose it was the way everyone reacted to that defeat that ulti