No one can wind the clock back or rewrite history but the choice of Brian O'Driscoll as Lions captain for tomorrow's first midweek tour game finally draws a line under one of the most regrettable episodes in modern British and Irish rugby. It is four years since O'Driscoll's tenure as the 2005 captain was rudely interrupted in the opening seconds of the first Test in New Zealand and there was no disguising the quiet pleasure in the team manager Gerald Davies's voice as he relayed the news yesterday.
While O'Driscoll remains understandably keener to look to the futurerather than the past, even he could not completely sidestep the symbolic nature of his appointment. Ever since the fateful moment the Irish centre was up-ended by Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu in Christchurch in 2005, dislocating his right shoulder and ending his tour, he has longed for another chance to wear the red jersey and natural justice has belatedly been done.
He also knew precisely what the first question would be when the day of atonement finally dawned. "For me it's not really about trying to put the wrongs of that right," he said. "It is just another opportunity to play in a Lions jersey." Did he ever wonder whether the Lions captaincy would come again after Paul O'Connell was given the nod by the head coach, Ian McGeechan for this tour? "It's not something you fear or think about. I always hoped I'd get on this Lions tour and the captaincy aspect was out of my hands. Geech went with Paulie which, for my money, was as good a bet as anyone. I'm delighted to be able to step in but hopefully there will be plenty of others who will help me. It's not just a one-man job."
The reality, given his status as Ireland's Grand Slam-winning captain, is that McGeechan could hardly have tossed the armband to anyone else after finalising a side containing 12 new starting players compared with the team who scraped past the Royal XV at the weekend. Any prospect of O'Driscoll sitting out a second game evaporated when it became clear Riki Flutey, Luke Fitzgerald and Keith Earls would all be unavailable, requiring Jamie Roberts to start his second game in five days. At this early stage O'Driscoll and Roberts stand a good chance of being the Test centre pairing and the same could yet apply to the all-Welsh half-back combination of Stephen Jones and Mike Phillips. If those combinations stay fit andclick early on this tour, McGeechan will be delighted.
Up front only David Wallace reappears for a second consecutive match in a starting pack which features Lions debuts for Lee Mears, Nathan Hines and Tom Croft. There was some positive news on the injury front in the shape of Leigh Halfpenny, who has now been deemed fit enough to join the tour and will arrive today, but Flutey is awaiting the results of a scan after straining a ligament behind his right knee. There is no great specialist depth at inside centre and the management will await developments anxiously. Fitzgerald, who has had a chest infection, and Earls (shoulder) should be available for selection against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein on Saturday.
The Golden Lions, meanwhile, have named something close to their regular Super 14 team but will be missing the injured Springbok internationals Jannes Labuschagne and Heinke van der Merwe, as well as the World Cup-winning centre Jacque Fourie. They will encounter a Lions side who, as the forwards coach, Warren Gatland, freely admits, can ill afford to take a backward step if they wish to inject some early momentum into their tour.
To reinforce the point, Gatland stressed that his players have a long way to go if they intend to match the intensity and tempo shown by the Bulls when beating Waikato Chiefs in the Super 14 final. "I think the Bulls would have beaten most teams in the world and most international sides as well," said the Wales head coach admiringly. "We've got to improve dramatically in that area and be a lot more clinical and direct on Wednesday night. Nothing is going to come easy." The Latin motto of the school where the Lions are training – Confortare esto vir ('Take courage and be a man') – could scarcely be more appropriate.Both Gatland and McGeechan also hinted the Lions had so far revealed only a fraction of their full arsenal, partly for tactical reasons and partly because they are still bolting together different aspects of their game with the aim of achieving a much tighter end-product: "We didn't try to do everything. It would have been crazy to do that," explained McGeechan. "What is key in rugby is the ability to vary your game and keep opponents guessing."
Ireland's recent success at Test and provincial level, according to O'Driscoll, could be equally beneficial: "Winning does become a habit; if you can infect a squad with that it's fantastic."
South Africa's coach, Peter de Villiers, yesterday named a 28-man squad for the three-Test series against the Lions including two uncapped men, the full-back Earl Rose and Morne Steyn, the Bulls fly-half. The side will be led by their veteran captain John Smit.
