IAN McGeechan isn't a superstitious soul, so when he was told that he had yet to lose a Second Test on any of his five previous Lions tours – two as a player, three as a coach – it came as news to him.
After winning second Tests in Pretoria in 1974, Christchurch in 1977, Brisbane in 1989, Wellington in 1993 and Durban in 1997, yesterday's reversal of fortunes was a new and unwelcome experience for the little Scot. And it could barely have been clos
er as replacement fly-half Morne Steyn lined up a huge penalty seconds from the end of a match that was as pulsating as any of the previous five in which McGeechan has been involved.
The Lions coach had been under huge pressure before this game. Where the disciplinarian sergeant majors he had delegated to on previous tours (Roger Uttley in 1989, Dick Best in 1993, Jim Telfer in 1997) had beasted the forwards and meshed them into a formidable unit, this time there were mutterings about the role of forwards coach Warren Gatland and scrum coach Graham Rowntree, who were blind-sided by the Boks in the first Test. Backs coach Shaun Edwards, according to sources in the camp, had come up short on the sort of technical nitty-gritty that makes the difference at this level.
If his coaches were inspiring grumbles, McGeechan's selection for the first Test raised just as many hackles. His decision to play Phil Vickery instead of Euan Murray even though Murray dismantled Tendai Mtawarira at Murrayfield in the autumn was clearly awry. So too did his playing two similar locks in skipper Paul O'Connell and Welshman Alun-Wynn Jones infuriate some.
His decision to make five changes in a move eerily reminiscent of his reaction to the first Test drubbing by the Wallabies in 1989 struck the right note. As in Brisbane, when the Lion'' beefed-up and psyched-up pack sparked the pandemonium of the Battle of Ballymore, yesterday's changes were perfectly pitched.
At tighthead, the little Welshman Adam Jones didn't take a step backwards against The Beast, while Simon Shaw, making his Lions Test debut at the age of 36, was their standout player. Those two changes, along with the replacement of one small hooker in Lee Mears with an equally limited but bigger No 2 in Matthew Rees, injected much-needed bulk, technical know-how and aggression into the tourists' pack, transforming an eight which was second-best last week into one on the front foot for long periods.
Behind the scrum, Rob Kearney may have been an enforced change after the injury sustained by Lee Byrne, but the Irishman was a revelation, his defensive display virtually faultless and his counter-attacking a constant threat. Nor did Luke Fitzgerald look out of place as Ugo Monye's replacement on the wing.
If McGeechan erred anywhere – and he did – it was in his choice of replacements in the backs, which went badly wrong. Having promised to pick on the basis of form, he selected two players in Ronan O'Gara and Shane Williams who have struggled for club, country and Lions. When the injuries started to take their toll, both men were found wanting.
Ultimately it was O'Gara's disastrous 12-minute cameo – in which he missed a tackle on Jaque Fourie for the killer try and then kicked ahead when finding touch would have ended the game and kept the series alive before compounding the crime by taking Fourie du Preez out in the air – that cost the Lions the game.
It will not, however, ruin what remains the most remarkable Lions career of all time. Such was the turnaround in the Lions' fortunes from a side which has such clear limitations, that McGeechan will rightly be cut some slack. He got the rub of the green in 1997, when Boks goalkicker Henry Honiball couldn't hit a barn door from five paces, this time he didn't.
Next week will mark McGeechan's 20th Test as a Lions player and head coach, and in all probability it will be his last. If yesterday's cracker of a game had been his final bow, it would have been a fittingly rousing end to one of the great careers in Lions rugby. Instead, we'll have to wait until next week and hope that the boys in red have one last hurrah in them for the greatest of all Lions.
