THE LIONS AND THE JUNGLE
LIKE a lot of us, Keith Wood has been drawn to a certain Lions DVD of late. It’s hardly surprising. After all, he did play a leading role in the 1997 tour and the acclaimed documentary which it spawned.
The thing is, it isn’t ‘Living With Lions’ that has been demanding his attention. Truth is, he hasn’t watched that in years, fond of it though he is. No, the footage that has captivated Wood is 50 years old.
Gordon Wood won 29 caps for Ireland and was part of the 1959 Lions squad that travelled to New Zealand and Australia but, a few grainy black and white images aside, his son never saw the old man play.
That all changed just after Christmas. The late England centre Jeff Butterfield had packed a colour video camera with him in ‘59 and word reached Wood six months ago that it was being catalogued for the Twickenham museum.
“One of the guys there said he could do a small edit of my father, which is brilliant. Really good quality. Behind-the-scenes as well. You have matches in it and guys going on to boating trips and walking through the town. That is fascinating.”
It wasn’t the first time the Lions brought his late father’s career to life. The first was prior to the ‘97 tour when he made a casual remark in a newspaper interview about how he had none of Gordon’s memorabilia.
By the time he left for South Africa, match programmes, ties and even one of his father’s international caps had all been forwarded on. His favourite piece of all though was a towel from the ‘59 tour. “It was phenomenal. I love the thing about the towel from the tour of 1959. I am tempted to frame it. It is absolutely magic though so I do have an appreciation of that.”
Wood’s own first Lions experience was the best documented of them all and one which safeguarded the concept in the fledgling professional era. Impeccable as a lineout thrower, the Killaloe man gave the 1997 tour to South Africa an added dimension in the loose and at the breakdown.
His all-pervasive influence was captured towards the end of the second test at Durban’s King’s Park when his kick and chase and lineout laid the foundation for Jeremy Guscott’s series-winning drop goal.
He shone off the park too, whether that was in his role as the Honorable Chief Justice Fester at the famous kangaroo court or the time when he revealed his attraction to pregnant women to a group of teammates in the physio room.
“The makers gave a very good taste of what it was like. It was a tour where there was almost an innocence. They did it unbelievably well. They never asked a single question. There wasn’t one interview.”
Ask any of the ‘97 Lions for their highlight of the trip and the day of the second test will merit a mention. Wood remembers it all lucidly, particularly the celebrations at a bar called Tuxedo Junction which is attached to the King’s Park.
Wood’s posse made their way back to the hotel late in the morning, ordered 20 steak sandwiches and sat down to watch the infamous Tyson-Holyfield fight when Iron Mike bit off a chunk of his opponent’s ear.
“It was a special time,” he says, “and lovely to look back on.”
It wasn’t all sweetness and light for Wood with the Lions. Four years later he toured with a side coached by Graham Henry that won the first test against Australia but let another famous series success slip through its fingers.
Wood starred again but the image of him that sticks in the mind from 2001 was of him shoving a TV technician to the ground during one of the tests as he ran from the field to receive treatment for a head wound.
He defends himself by claiming the same guy had tripped up the Lions team doctor with a trailing wire seconds before, something which evaded the camera lens at the time, but he looks back on the trip now as the one that got away.
“It was but I loved it for what it was. I really enjoyed the tour. It was unbelievably hard. We definitely over-trained, we definitely went to too many meetings about meetings about training. We made mistakes.
“We were going to change the lineout calls before the last week and didn’t. We should have. We were falling apart. Six guys trained on the Monday of the last week. I was one of them and I never trained on a Monday. My body was always a shambles and I was fine. We were very, very close. It was a terrible pity because we had a very good team. We played well in the first test but we didn’t score in the last 20 minutes of any game. Maybe in one, but we were shattered by the end of it. I remember how disappointing it was. Shattering. I was unbelievably low after that. It was very tough but I learned an awful lot from it too.”
He was retired from the game for two seasons by the time Clive Woodward overloaded his trolley for the tour to New Zealand but he is encouraged that he has been able to detect similarities between the current tourists and the class of ‘97.
That said, today is a step into the unknown — as it always is for a Lions team approaching its first test — as well as for a Springbok side whose last competitive fixture was against England in London last November.
That may be to the visitors’ advantage and it may not. You just never can tell. By rights, a scratch side from four unions should lose to a side like the world champions every time but this crew has blended.
Hope lives. For now.
It may well prove to be horribly misplaced. Four years ago, the All Blacks crushed the tourists 3-0 and, though the concept remains a money-spinner, a similar result would leave its future in doubt.
“The financial aspect to it leaves it in a very viable situation but that then requires it to be more of a 50-50 tour. There has to be more give and take between the home union and the Lions, agreement on a whole wide range of things.
“If everything is stacked against the Lions, and they are, then we need to rectify some of that. There is an awful lot rides on this tour. If things don’t go well there could be a doubt over it, despite the financial side of it.”
If anyone can pull it off, it is Ian McGeechan. Wood describes him as a great coach of great players but not necessarily average ones. A man with the ability to tell a player what he wants while leaving room for individual interpretation.
“In some case that would be to hang yourself and in others to help yourself. It is not black and white. He doesn’t want to play a game that is predictable.
“He knows there is quality within the squad and he is relying on you to unleash whatever quality you have. The rope is there for you to play as well as you can and then there is his appreciation of what the Lions is about as well.”
It is an appreciation that Wood certainly shares.
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