David Hands engages that frustrating sporting cliche by asking, "what if?" following the Lions' second Test loss in The Times.
"Rob Kearney slumped against a goalpost. Luke Fitzgerald lay prone on his back, looking up at the blue, highveld sky. The thoughts of Ronan O’Gara, never mind the lacerated left eye that left him unable to see from it later, do not bear imagination.
"The Lions were strewn across the Loftus Versfeld pitch on Saturday while all around them, South Africa celebrated the winning of the series.
"Later came the bitterness and the attempts to understand how two internationals that were winnable had been lost. The most useless expression in sport emerged: “What if . . . ”
"What if Schalk Burger had been given a red card rather than a yellow for gouging Fitzgerald’s eye in the first minute? Or the game had not gone to uncontested scrums for nearly all of the second half, or the Lions midfield had remained intact?"
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