As the Lions get acclimatised in South Africa one of the key facets of the tour could already be unfolding - Springbok skipper John Smit's move to tight-head.Smit is bullish and predicting a rout as he talks to Chris Hewett in The Independent.
"There was a smidgen of good news for the British and Irish Lions as the majority of the squad continued their hard yakka on the training field while a small handful of those not required for this weekend's tour opener against an invitation side in Rustenburg – Brian O'Driscoll, Gethin Jenkins, Ugo Monye and Nathan Hines among them – headed off to an impoverished township to inaugurate a new rugby pitch at Masibambane College, a seat of learning set up at the request of the great anti-apartheid campaigner Walter Sisulu, no less.
"The glad tidings concerned John Smit, who led South Africa to the world title in 2007 while confirming himself as one of the finest hookers in Springbok history. Smit pretty much confirmed that in the forthcoming Test series, someone else will be doing the hooking while he continues in his old-new position of tight-head prop, the role he performed in age-group rugby. It is not a policy that convinces everyone in these parts – perhaps not even Smit, calmness personified as a general rule but a trifle prickly on the subject yesterday. When the 31-year-old forward from Limpopo province was asked whether it might not be a little late to start chopping and changing, he replied: "It would be if I thought my career was nearly finished." Which he doesn't, apparently.
"Smit will play at prop when a Springbok side shorn of their Bulls, who play in the Super 14 final on Saturday, take on a Namibian XV in Windhoek tomorrow by way of warming up for the important business ahead. And there was plenty about the captain – a glint in the eye, an edge to the voice – that left no one in his presence in any doubt as to the South Africans' burning determination to avenge the defeat by the Lions a dozen years ago."
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