Edwards: relax and you can conquer Springboks

GARETH EDWARDS was a worried man as he left for South Africa in 1974.

The Cardiff scrum-half had been in the party that had lost the series 3-0 to the Springboks six years before but it was the enormously successful tour to New Zealand in between that was giving him the willies before his latest visit to the Cape.

The 1971 series win was the Lions’ first since the Second World War and it changed the landscape drastically ahead of the near three-month tour to South Africa.

It was a change that sat none too well with Edwards.

“Having won in New Zealand, we found an amount of pressure in ‘74 to go out and win because we had won in ‘71 after nobody had given us any hope. They had sent us off saying, ‘well, all the best, boys, even if you are cannon fodder’.

“Then in ‘74 everyone was saying, ‘off you go to South Africa now and beat them’. People didn’t appreciate how difficult it was to play in South Africa, on hard grounds against good teams week after week, altitude.

“These weren’t excuses, just facts. So, I felt a little bit of trepidation having been successful and having had previous experience of touring in South Africa as a Lion and knowing how difficult it was.”

As we now know, those concerns were groundless. The ‘74 Lions would return home as the ‘Invincibles’ having won 21 of their 22 games and drawn the other, the last test against the Boks when they were robbed of a last-minute try.

When Edwards looks back on ‘71 and ‘74 he has little hesitation in plumping for the latter as his favourite. New Zealand is a beautiful country but it was cold, wet and miserable when the Lions toured. Edwards compared it to the west of Ireland in winter.

South Africa was different.

“In South Africa, for all the demands and expectation and intensity of the followers, it has much more to offer in terms of relaxation off the pitch. You aren’t training in tracksuits because of the wet and cold either.

“You are training in a vest and shorts and the sun on your back, with a dry ball and firm ground, which is absolutely lovely. Then, to top it all off, someone will invite you to meet some people over a quiet beer.”

The ‘74 Lions worked hard but they played hard too and that recipe was rehashed 23 years later when the tourists returned to the same shores to take on a side that had claimed what it deemed to be its birthright at the World Cup finals two years before.

Paul Wallace was one of those who immersed himself into the tour on and off the park.

“You have got to go out an enjoy yourself,” says the prop, one of three brothers to play for the Lions. “Guys who are completely rugby focused for the whole tour are playing a dangerous game because it is a long trip and you have to have your down time as well.

“We trained very hard on that tour but every chance we got we were off to a shooting range or to do some shark cage diving. Rest is very important.”

Few give the current side much hope of claiming another famous series win over South Africa but events in New Zealand four years ago have made it imperative that the Lions prove to be more competitive than Clive Woodward’s touring party.

The Lions brand has proven to be enormously successful, thanks largely to that victory 12 years ago, but it is debatable as to how long it could survive in this vibrant state were the Lions to go on losing series after series.

“Twelve years ago we were told that it was probably going to be the last Lions tour and if we had lost maybe it would have been,” says Wallace. “Had it been like the last one in New Zealand that might have been the end of the Lions.

“Since then it has just grown and grown as a brand. It is a huge money generator, especially for the country it is visiting. There is a lot of goodwill for it and there are very few of these old traditions left in rugby.’’

Ask any Lion about the concept’s viability going forward and the answer is the same.

“From a player’s perspective it is an opportunity to play at the highest level,” says Fergus Slattery who toured in ‘71 and ‘74 with Edwards. “You play for your country and that is fantastic but the Lions is an added dimension.

“You are representing half of the top eight countries in the world.

“You are halfway there to your world XV if you like and it works. The side you are playing against forms much of the other half of that equation, sides that have won World Cups, so the challenge is as valid today as it was 100 years ago.”

This time they carry our hopes rather than our expectations.