Different characters unite in a common cause

If truth be told, there is very little to link the Resident Manager and the Demented Irish Miner. True, they both drink beer and they both ride bicycles, but it is their devotion to the Lions’ cause which binds these two very different characters.

The Demented One has Lions decals on the sides of his supercharged muscle bakkie that would be more suitable for the side of a team bus and has raised the thought on more than one occasion that it is perhaps fortunate he does not support the Bulls as the horns he would strap to his vehicle would certainly be illegal and probably lethal to innocent pedestrians on the pavement.

The Managerial Type is of an entirely lower-key approach. There are no stickers on his work- a-day bakkie, neither do the frenetic chants of “Come on you Liooooons” which form a very vocal part of the Demented One’s matchday vocabulary form any discernible part of his makeup, but he is, nevertheless, just as staunch in his support.

In short, the Managerial Type’s demeanour is one of considered logic and his plans tend to work because they are executed along studied lines of progression. In contrast, the Demented One is living proof that the chaos theory is not confined to the realm of quantum physics.

So it was of more than a passing interest that the 20-3 deficit which showed against the Lions on the half-time scoreboard at Ellis Park in their Super Rugby outing against the Highlanders

Jon Swi

elicited almost mirror image responses from the unlikely pair.

“That’s nothing,” said the Demented One, displaying a failure to adhere to the unwritten laws of rugby accounting. “The Lions will still win this one.”

The Managerial Type was equally certain his side would prevail. “They have come from behind before,” he said. “They can do it again.”

It must be said at this juncture that the response to this double-barrelled blast of enthusiastic optimism from the assembled company was underwhelming at best.

“The Highlanders are all over them,” said the Arithmetically-challenged Golfer, the self-appointed oracle of anything of a sporting nature. “How do the Lions hope to possibly recover from this?”

It was, not to put too fine a point on it, a logical rhetorical question none of the gathering were prepared to risk offering an answer to.

The answer was to be given on the winter turf of the Highveld as wing Courtnall Skosan, flanker Jaco Kriel and centre Harold Vorster all scored tries for the Lions and flyhalf Elton Jantjies added two conversions and two penalties in the dramatic comeback the Lions manufactured against the Highlanders when they had looked dead and buried when the halftime whistle went, was enough – for the moment – to virtually link the two at the hip.

But it was not as cut and dried as that. “The Lions,” opined the Arithmetically-Challenged One, for once making some sense, “will have to learn to play more than just an inspired 40 minutes of rugby. The game is after all, of 80 minutes duration. Unless they manage to do this, all the pair of you can do is live in hope.”

A shared glance between the disparate pair in question literally crackled with electricity before they answered in unison: “We do,” they said. “We do.”