Mum’s verdict wins captaincy of Lions for ‘honest’ son Martin
Brendan Gallagher continues his expert and authoritative look at the history of Rugby Union
THERE are many miraculous aspects to the 1997 Lions tour of South Africa, not least the domestic strife from which the team was spawned. The 1996-97 season was the first season of professionalism in the British and Irish game, everybody was scrambling to find their feet and chaos reigned. The prospect, therefore, of toppling the reigning World Champions on their own soil seemed remote to some.
The omens weren’t good but one or two factors played out in the Lions’ favour. The Heineken European Cup had hit the ground running and provided an excellent high-quality battle ground in addition to the Five Nations to aid the selection process.
Above all else they had two canny operators and victors from 1974 in charge, namely manager Fran Cotton and coach Ian McGeechan. In addition assistant coach Jim Telfer was on the same hymn sheet and had his own, more painful, experiences of South Africa and was keen to set the record straight.
They picked the right squad for the job with just the one ‘bolter’ in John Bentley, more of which anon. And they made an inspired choice of captain in Martin Johnson even though the Leicester Tiger hadn’t yet captained his country.
Yes, they wanted a big beast of a man to front up their campaign in the land of giant forwards, a player in the mould of Willie John McBride, but as Cotton reveals there was another element to the decision-making process. Martin Johnson’s mum!
“It was Peter Wheeler who originally placed the thought in our minds about Martin, so I started contacting various people to educate myself a bit more on the man. We already knew he was a certain Test starter barring injury
“I spoke to his then coach at Tigers, Bob Dwyer, and some senior members of the Tigers team and a few of the England boys as well. All were full of praise but I wasn’t getting a real feel for the guy so I took the radical step of calling on his mum Hillary for a chat. Nobody knows you better than your mum!
“Hillary was sensible and proud but she didn’t lavish praise. Right at the end I asked her what his greatest quality was. Without hesitation she said his truthfulness and honesty. If you asked him a question he would give you a straight answer. He would never lie. If he said he would do something, he never let you down.”
That decided the matter, the dye was cast. Another of the many things the Lions got right was the itinerary and onsite training. The first two Tests were at sea level, a rare luxury, and McGeechan opted to get down to Durban as soon as possible after the end of the domestic season for the squad to put in nine days of intensive training. The Rugby League contingent immediately came into their own, they would allow no slacking in the sweltering sunshine.
In fact, save for a couple of damp days in East London the sun shone continuously for eight weeks on tour. The mood was light and optimistic and Cotton picked up the vibe and went with it. This was the last great ‘amateur’ tour socially even if it was projected as the first professional tour. These Lions played it hard on and off the field and no questions were asked.
The first Test in Cape Town was key and the Lions had to endure, resist and persist for 75 per cent of the game before they finally got the upper hand and won going away. The pick of their two tries was Matt Dawson’s mesmerising effort off the back of a scrum with his outrageous one handed basketball style dummy that stopped three or four Boks in their tracks, so much so that he scored comfortably while appearing to run in slow motion. Has there ever been a more effective dummy?
Suddenly the second Test was potentially the clincher and what an extraordinary game. The enraged Boks threw the kitchen sink at the Lions, scored three tries and were denied at least three others by heroic defence. It was one-way traffic, there was only one side in it, defeat looked certain but the Lions wouldn’t crack completely and Neil Jenkins, the world’s best goal-kicker at the time, kept them in the game by banging over every morsel they were offered. Somehow the Lions kept in touch.
The Boks had made a massive mistake selectorial. They went in without a frontline goal kicker, with Henry Honiball unable to build the advantage those tries offered, missing a
“Pick of their tries was Matt Dawson’s mesmerising effort off the back of a scrum”