Lions insider Richard Anderson stakes his claim for a call up during a touch rugby clash on the beach.
Lions insider Richard Anderson stakes his claim for a call up during a touch rugby clash on the beach
The sun finally managed to peep through the perpetual grim cloud that has hung over Durban for the past four days. Hurray! That could only mean one thing...
Ice-cream? No. Beer? No... well, not initially. At 2pm local time on a reasonably sunny day and with all media activity shut down and reports filed, there is only one thing to do in a coastal city buzzing with rugby fans. Touch rugby on the beach!
And so it came to pass, that at about 2.30pm on Durban's North beach, 16 male human beings of varying physical shape and condition, marked out a pitch some 20m wide and 30m long, took a breather afterwards, divided themselves into two teams, and set about trying to get the ball past each other and from one end of the pitch to the other in the greatest 'pass backwards, run forwards' tradition.
It was not a game of distinguished quality. It was not a game of any quality at all. There were a couple of flash moments, both accidental. There were several breaks for air - and a cigar in one case. There was much hilarity at one or two attempts to accelerate using forty-year-old thighs on soft sand. Only one kicked restart in five did not go out or dead on the full.
But right at the end, a moment of pure Coarse Rugby bliss, when the most mature - in years - of those among us, who had failed to score all afternoon and was clearly feeling the effects of his smoking habit, took the ball off a restart, dummied his opponent - who had been the game's class act - lunged forward in motion slow enough that it could have been underwater and fell over the line for the winning try. He's still talking about it - his winner on the Lions tour in Durban.
Warren Gatland revealed a refreshing approach to the endless protocols and 'housekeeping' arrangements that seem to lurk around every corner of this tour. He was asked if there was any stipulation in the Tour Agreement - that's a list of disciplinary rules drawn up before the tour itself - about accumulated yellow cards, with reference to Phil Vickery's for stamping on Wednesday night.
Honest
What did the man who has a big input on squad discipline come up with as an answer?
"I don't read tour agreements. They're too long for me." Honest, as opposed to tactical.
Another one on form after Wednesday's game was Riki Flutey, who had been interviewed by the English press but was left stranded as everyone surrounded Luke Fitzgerald. Not to be outdone, Flutey grabbed his mobile phone, stood by all the other hacks fiercely clutching their dictaphones, and then chimed in: "Luke, sorry if you have been asked this before, but what really is your favourite position?"
Fitzgerald thought for a moment, and replied: "I'd have to say, without a doubt, that I am going for that inside centre berth at the moment..."
Finally, after Wednesday night's game and a brief reflection on scandals of rugby past such as England's 'Auckland Four' tour and the continued problems of the social integration of Danny Cipriani, a more general conversation ensued on the decline of the behavioural standards within the game.
There then followed a story about two players within the current squad, who once bet each other how many women they could charm within the space of a calendar month. The total of the winner averaged significantly over one a day. Heads were shaken in some corners, reproaches were pondered.
But I do remember making a similar bet myself in my first year at college, and most people who know me don't find me morally reprehensible - or if they do, they hide it very well and tolerate it an awful lot. How many tour antics are symbolic of a moral decay, and how many are just young men being young men? Perhaps we should think before we judge sometimes.
I won, by the way...
