O’Connell leads Lions from the front

PAUL O’CONNELL was described as “a man on a mission” by Royal XV coach Chaka Willemse after the Irishman had hauled his Lions & team through a few sticky patches in the first game of the 2009 tour.

“It was easy to see why he was made captain. He wants to lead by example all the time and he was the man who gave the Lions some go forward – he really was a man on a mission,” said Willemse.

“I think that once the Lions have played four or five times together they will be a superb unit. It is far too early to say what sort of threat they will pose to the Springboks, but I think they will be a quality side by the time of the Test series.”

Winning the Test series is certainly O’Connell’s ‘mission’, but he knows better than anyone that his team will have to cut out the errors if they are to seriously challenge the world champion Springboks.

There were 14 turn-overs alone in a jittery first-half and a host of dropped passes. There was even a strike against the head on their own line by the Royal XV against an otherwise totally dominant Lions scrum.

“It was very scrappy and I don’t think we will make the same mistakes again. But it was our first game after only being here for six days, so we are delighted to get the win,” was O’Connell’s honest assessment.

“There are no easy games on a tour like this and it was a once in 12-year opportunity for the Royal XV players to play against the Lions. They certainly made the most of it.

“The errors took away our momentum and any chance we had of developing our game in the first-half. Every time we turned over the ball they sent us back.

“The problem is that every turn over a team gains helps them to grow bigger and stronger – that’s what happened to the Royal XV.

“The enthusiasm for this game from the players shocked me during the week and I think, in the end, that enthusiasm got the better of us.

“The first-half was harder than the second. Once we got used to the conditions we were more comfortable and competitive.

“We felt more powerful in the second half. It is a big step for us to get used to conditions like these after only six days in the country.”

O’Connell picked up a trophy as well as a finger in the eye during the game forcing him to have some antiseptic eye drops and an eye patch applied afterwards.

On top of that, he also had some fluid drained from an ear in a bid to avoid the perils of worsening cauliflower ears. For a while he was wearing a bandage around his head to add to the eye patch!

But one player who was smiling as ever was Irish wing Tommy Bowe, who had the honour of scoring the first lions try on tour.

“For me it was great to get on the scoresheet and to get the first try when we weren’t going so well was a bit of a bonus. It was a good, hard first day,” he said.

“We all got a good blow on and we’re happy to come out with a win. The conditions were difficult and they threw in a lot of blitzers and didn’t allow us to get into our rhythm.

“But we dug in, fought hard and came out with a win and that’s a good start. A few people might have been worrying a bit in the second half, but when we let them in for that try we were applying al the pressure.

“At half-time we thought it was time to step it up a level. At stages we did and at other times we let go a little bit.”