Colin Sheridan: The stars aligned for me. I saw the try line. I knocked on

Mon, 05 Jul, 2021 - 06:50

I went to the zoo last week. Maybe you can see where this is going. A delightful experience for the kids, as you’d expect. I, too, will never not find those monkeys with the bare arses delightfully amusing. I had forgotten how much wonder children can derive from seeing exotic animals for the first time, albeit in captivity.

The trip was not without its moments of comedy gold, either, albeit wholly unappreciated. Standing at the big cats enclosure, I became aware that a young family with two lads in Leinster jerseys were standing alongside me. Craning their necks to figure out was it the trunk of a tree or a sleeping lioness they were looking at, I lined them up like Shane Williams might a couple of front row forwards in midfield, and gave them the quipping version of a goose step: “Might be the only lions you’ll see this summer, lads.”

To my horror, neither of them averted their gaze. It was as if they didn’t hear me. Rather than buy the dummy I had meticulously sold, I crashed straight into them. It was the open-mic version of a spear tackle.

Suddenly, extremely self-aware, I steadied myself, and tried to land the joke again. Maybe the mating call of the nearby Malabar pied hornbill drowned the punchline out? Ever tried, ever failed, etc.

I was halfway through my next attempt, which, to my immense credit, I was delivering with much more authority, when, in my peripheral vision, I spotted the pair pushing on towards the flamingos. And so, my lion’s joke hung in the air, like tear gas, heard by nobody but me, its aftertaste stinging my eyes. My moment of pathos was quickly interrupted by the realisation I hadn’t seen my own kids in a full five minutes, and they were now likely picking fleas out of a gorilla’s head.

I let it go, deciding to adopt an ‘if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it’ philosophy to my joke. Would I ever get to use it again? Would I have to wait an entire British and Irish Lions cycle, before returning to the zoo and dropping the same gag? I realised the folly of my plight; what are the chances there would be another pandemic casting doubt over a Lions tour? What are the chances, too, that a higher power would put two lads in Leinster jerseys in front of me.

The stars aligned for me last Saturday. I saw the try line. I knocked on.

Crushed, I tried to walk it off. The fog had just begun to lift as I passed Ryan’s on Parkgate St, and there they were. The two boys. Faces pressed against the window, watching — you guessed it — the British and Irish Lions duke it out with Japan. The universe was laughing at me.

And so, the prophecy was fulfilled, the Lions are set to haunt me this summer. If you don’t like what you see, look away, I hear you say. I would if I could, but I’m one of those people that if sport is on television, and I have the opportunity to watch it, I will. I’m talking about professional bull riding from the City of Guthrie, Logan County on ESPN Plus. My wheelhouse is so big it could host the Super Bowl.

But, this Lions tour to South Africa may be a box kick too far. It’s a shame, too, because none of it is the fault of the players. What an honour it must be for any Irish international to get the nod to go, and what pride Conor Murray’s family must feel in his being named captain. Whatever the sport, being selected for representative teams is something special, but this tour to South Africa feels less Willie John McBride, more Last Days of the Railway Cup.

Speaking of the Railway Cup, 60 years ago, 35,000 people watched Munster beat Leinster in Croke Park. At the same time, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth in the world’s first manned space flight. That was a big deal. Last week, billionaires and cartoon villains Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson traded blows in their own public space war, Branson announcing he would attempt to go to space on July 11, just nine days before the world’s richest man, Bezos, will make his own spaceflight, proving that what was important and groundbreaking many decades ago, can get corrupted by ego and corporate spin 60 years later. Truly, the Lions PR machine is about as grounded in reality as anything Bezos and Branson have put out the past few weeks.

The official website’s homepage announces ‘The World’s Greatest Tour’ (just to be clear, this the Lions website, not the space tourists) and ‘Eight Incredible Matches, Six Spell-Binding weeks’, while also advertising a priority access pass which allows you first dibs on tickets for the tour of Australia in 2025, a snip at £300 per person (the 300 quid does not buy you tickets, but the privilege to be among the first to).

Just like space, people will, I guess, buy the ticket to buy the ticket.

The PR spin is not even the most sinister aspect of this tour. Its very existence, in the broader context of a global pandemic, most definitely is. South Africa, with more than 2m recorded Covid-19 cases and over 60,000 deaths, is gripped in an unrelenting third wave of the virus.

There are reports of it ravaging the townships. The country’s vaccination rollout is the slowest in all the continent of Africa.

Still, undeterred, the Lions drum beats on. History needs to be written, not by the victors on the field of play, but by the spin merchants and suits off it. The players are pawns, and we, the paying public, plebs.

We’d all be better off at the zoo. At least there, the lions don’t bother anybody.