Cal Gray | Senior Staff Writer
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, our country was crudely awoken by the news that Brian O’Driscoll was dropped from the Lions 23 man squad to face Australia in the final match of the test series.
I reacted with immediate disbelief. I was sure there must be some mistake. Then I started to presume he was carrying some injury.
But no.
I followed the disbelief and assumptions with anger, and it was a hot anger that burns inside me even now. How could Warren Gatland do this to the man who has poured his blood and sweat over the last four Lions tours? That equates to twelve years of giving his all at the highest level of the sport.
Of course no man has a divine right to be instantly selected for the Lions team, but surely everyone with eyes can see the value of O’Driscoll playing, as compared to the greatest player of his generation watching from the stands.
Form.
Sure, I gave time to the arguments that he was out of form, but it was not very much time. If we want to dissect it in terms of the numbers, Brian O’Driscoll made 13 tackles in the last match against Australia. He missed none. Jonathan Davies (who I wholeheartedly admit is a magnificent player who has grown in confidence and ability as the tour has gone on) made 7 tackles, of which he missed 3, including the missed tackle that allowed Adam Ashley-Cooper to score the winning try. It’s true the centre combination of O’Driscoll and Davies hasn’t worked so far, but all the evidence points to Davies being out of place at 12. With the return of Jamie Roberts, it should not be O’Driscoll who is forced off the pitch.
I mean, I don’t see the form book being even opened here. Especially when we consider that Jamie Heaslip also doesn’t even make the bench, having impressed in the first two tests. There is no scrap of logic behind this. If anyone can say to me that Brian O’Driscoll would not have played this final test as if his entire life hinged on it, if they can say that to me and mean it, then that person is still wrong.
Leadership
Sam Warburton was picked as tour captain because of his ‘ability to befriend referees’, with Paul O’Connell and Brian O’Driscoll alternating the vice captaincy. However, if you wanted to get on the right side of referees in the southern hemisphere then O’Driscoll is the only modern rugby player who referees are actually afraid to upset. In the second test referee Craig Joubert even apologised to O’Driscoll after awarding a penalty against the Irishman for being off his feet at the breakdown. You could tell that Joubert had nothing but respect for him.
Now with Warburton out injured, and Paul O’Connell gone too, Brian O’Driscoll was everyone’s favourite to captain the side. This was to be his fairytale ending and now it has been stolen from him.
I suppose one could even argue that it would have been too perfect. 16 years since the last Lions series win, then Warburton picks up an injury, O’Driscoll is handed the metaphorical armband and told to lead his Lions side to victory in his last ever match for the touring side; but now it is not to be.
Now, when we look back at the latter stages of the talismanic O’Driscoll’s career, we will see that his last Lions match was a stuttering defeat to the Aussies in Melbourne, betrayed by Gatland. Dropping O’Driscoll is like sacking Santa on Christmas Eve.
For the first time in my life, a part of me partially agreed with George Hook. In an interview with Miriam O’Callaghan on RTE Radio 1, Hook said that O’Driscoll should have retired after the Amlin Cup and League double.
Maybe.
Perhaps he should have taken his trophies, hung up his boots on the way out the door and said thank you to his team mates and let that be that.
But no.
He wanted a Lions win. He yearned for it. The man dubbed ‘The Lion King’ lacked one medal from that illustrious and full-to-the-brim trophy cabinet. He was always going to travel to Australia and wear that famous 13 jersey. But now he has had his moment yanked from him by a poor coach in the form of Warren Gatland. A poor coach who has simply panicked in the face of losing the series.
I mean, let’s face it, the Australians should have won the first match, with only Kurtley Beale’s poorly tied boots stopping them, and they did then go on to win the second match. By that logic, the series should be over, but it’s not. Now with their backs to the wall, needing a win to justify not only Gatland’s employment, but the continued worth of the entire Lions tour every four years, having not won a series in 16 years, Gatland has gone with what he knows; 10 gigantic Welsh battering rams. That’s 10 gigantic battering rams from a country whose current national team has never beaten Australia. Brian O’Driscoll however, has beaten Australia more or less on his own. On numerous occasions.
None of this sits right, does it?
I should point out that I am not writing this because of patriotic allegiance, I’m writing because the greatest player of his era has been dishonored. If we want international back-up, we can go to the negative reactions of Stuart Barnes, Sonny Bill Williams, Matt Giteau, Richard Wigglesworth, Lawrence Dallaglio, Austin Healey, Dan Carter and my favourite from the twitter account of Joe Rokocoko (“Gutted not 2 see @BrianODriscoll play this weekend, 17years old when I 1st watched lions play and still haven’t forgotten how the man played”)
These are all accomplished rugby men, proving that the worst part of this tragic story is that there is nothing they nor we can do about it. We can tweet all day and post endless statuses on Facebook, but the truth of the matter is that the hero of modern rugby has had his final moment in the sun stolen away from him and that is that. You don’t even have to be a fan of rugby to see that this great man has been done a terrible injustice, and I just wish with all my heart that there were some solution, but there is not.
I do hope the Lions win the series this Saturday, and I hope that Jonathan Davies will have a terrific game in the number 13 jersey, but for the rest of my life when I look back on this tour I will think of how Brian O’Driscoll did not take his place in the team he was meant to captain, for the match he was meant to win.
