Phil Vickery - News

But it turns out I have one more chance in today’s final Test, and I can honestly say I am looking forward to this match more than any I have ever played in.

We have lost the series, but the honour and privilege involved in being part of this magnificent institution is no less than if we had everything still to play for. And anyway, for those of us playing today, we do have everything to play for.

What’s more, I give us an outstanding chance of getting the victory that only just eluded us in each of the first two matches, which amply demonstrated how, at this exalted level, you need more of the marginal things to go your way.

It is a wonderful thing for me to be involved again, though I would like to stress that after I had been omitted last week I did everything in my power to help ensure the guys who were selected were as well prepared as they could possibly be.

I realise, too, that there was a vacancy left by Adam Jones’ injury and no one feels more sympathy for Adam than I do. He was having a fine match in Pretoria and his dislocated shoulder was a distressing way for his Lions tour to end.

People will wonder how I feel now after the difficult time I had in the first Test. I wouldn’t quite describe it as unfinished business but I know I played poorly and it hardly came as a surprise when Adam was called in.

But I have since had the chance to analyse exactly what went wrong and I have been around long enough to know that every setback in your career in fact gives you the opportunity to learn and improve.

Put it this way: no way was I, or am I, scarred by that experience no matter how bad it looked.

All it did was spur me on to work even harder on my game, not just on the scrummaging where there was so much bother, but on everything and every aspect of play.

So I would venture to hope that my problems in Durban will not recur in Johannesburg. This is my Lions finale – I badly want to go out in winning style, and then people might have something positive to say about me.

It is pointless pretending a third Test with two defeats already behind us will be anything other than tough, and not merely in the strictly rugby sense. We somehow have to rouse ourselves out of the utter disappointment which we all felt so deeply in Pretoria a week ago.

On the other hand, there are so many changes in both sides it is almost as if this is an entirely new start. I dare say the Springboks would say exactly the same, but we know the quality in our side. We know we are in with a shout.

A win would be neither compensation nor consolation for losing this series but I believe we have put a vast amount of pride back in that hallowed jersey.

It has been one of the great experiences of my rugby life.

The game in Pretoria was brutal to play in and, from an emotional point of view, just as difficult to watch.

Until those final desperate minutes, I had no doubt that the guys who went out to face down the Springboks had done enough to clinch victory.

I would go further and say that every one of those Lions who played in that match can be hugely proud of what he did in circumstances as demanding as any you could get on a rugby field, even including a World Cup final.

You expect effort. You expect spirit. But it went beyond either of these essential qualities. Everyone had to dig as deeply into himself as he had ever done for what became a test of will, as much as a test of strength.

So no messing around, no backing off – it was face to face and toe to toe. We were totally determined to stand up to the bullying tactics and physical threat always posed by the Boks.

This we did by giving back to them some of what they like to dish out to us or whoever their opponents are. Watching from the stand, I felt we more than matched them until, in their desperation, they came on so strongly in the second half.

This meant standing our ground and not falling prey to any cheap shots but also relying on the referee to sort out anything untoward. Then, though, there was the Schalk Burger incident with Luke Fitzgerald.

I have to say, from where I was I could not see what happened but I have heard plenty about it since. It is simple really – if Burger did what is alleged, he should have had a red card. If he did not, he would have been cleared by the disciplinary process anyway.

But putting my finger on exactly what went wrong, why I kept being penalised and why the Beast – Tendai Mtawarira, packing down opposite me – looked such a good scrummager I still have not worked out.

We could not get any stability into our scrum. The engagement with the South African pack did not go as we wanted or needed. And referee, Bryce Lawrence, took a distinct distaste to me, in particular.

Loads of people have asked me about it since the game and all I can say in reply is that until I go through the videotape of the match and look at all those scrums in minute detail I really will not know.

It is going to be an interesting session with Graham Rowntree, our scrum coach and a fine prop himself, when he and I were playing together for England. I do not expect to be spared. This needs to be put right.

I didn’t think it was any one thing. I had had a couple of bad scrums and then the referee made his decisions, which were against me and never the Beast. He was very adamant but I never really worked out what he wanted.

We could see then, and can see even more clearly in hindsight, the effect the scrummage battle had on the game. It is profoundly disappointing for me that my problems had such an adverse effect on everyone else. But I am not going to sit here and moan about the referee. I never have, never will. It has never been my style. One thing he did say was that I was driving up, that I was not square-on before the hit.

But I am not so sure. The contrast with all the games that have led to the Test was complete. Our scrummage has gone well and we thought we ought to be able to use it to our advantage. But we also knew that the Springbok scrum would be vastly better than some of the advance publicity had suggested.

All the talk about John Smit being a possible weak link I discounted. I know John very well and know what a fine player he is. Moving from hooker to tighthead is anyway easier for him, because he started out as a prop.

Then there is the Beast. As I know to my cost, Tendai is a very strong man, a prop who has developed very rapidly over the past seven months since he played with South Africa at Twickenham last November.

I was so pleased and proud to be selected for this Test. Even at this senior stage of my career I do not think I had ever felt so nervous. Perhaps that reflected in the way I played.

I am realistic enough to know my place must be at risk for the second Test in Pretoria. What happened in Durban is bound to make it harder for me but I am big enough and honest enough to take that on the chin if it happens. There were plenty of disappointed guys when the
first team was read out and there will be others experiencing such emotions when it happens for the second Test. Not forgetting we have a game with the Emerging Springboks tomorrow.

If I do not make it, it is important everyone realises I will not be going around moping or sapping other people’s energy. I will be doing absolutely everything I can to help those who have been chosen. We are all in this together.

What’s more, I give the Lions a serious chance in the second Test. The last time I was involved in a Lions tour, in Australia in 2001, we were 1-0 up and everyone was saying the Wallabies would never get back into it.

I hardly need reminding that they won the last two Tests and took the series. So nothing is pre-ordained, and there is no basis to the theory that if the Lions lost the first Test they could not win the series.