Peter Bills, writing in The Independent, believes that the close nature of the Lions series is a cause for concern for South Africa.
"No doubt partly due to South Africa's poor, dreadfully uneven performances during the Test series, the Lions escaped the 3-0 whitewash which an efficient, properly structured Springbok side would inevitably have inflicted. In the end, the Lions left bemoaning the fact that, but for a mere handful of points, a 2-1 series defeat could easily have been a draw or even a win.
"No greater indictment of these misfiring Springboks exists than that fact. South African rugby has declined since the peak of the 2007 World Cup triumph.
"Yet perhaps even more importantly, in the course of just six weeks, Lions coach Ian McGeechan and his colleagues repaired a great deal of the damage done to the Lions ethos by Clive Woodward's mad japes in 2005 in New Zealand. Now there's a thought, incidentally – imagine a Lions side coached by Woodward against a Springbok side coached by Peter de Villiers. Endless material for the men in white coats...
"But significant factors still imperil the Lions. As Jeremy Guscott so rightly said last week "If the countries hosting the Lions do not give them proper respect by fielding as full strength sides as possible against them in the midweek games, then they place in peril the whole Lions idea."
RSS feed
