THE weekend ended in acrimony, with the Lions accusing New Zealand players of reckless play in the incident the led to the departure from the tour of skipper Brian O’Driscoll — and with Danny Grewcock facing a judicial hearing after being cited for an alleged bite on All Black hooker Keven Mealamu, writes Stephen Jones.
O’Driscoll was carried from the field with a dislocated right shoulder after being dumped at the side of a ruck by a double hit from Tana Umaga, the All Black captain, and Mealamu. The Lions demanded that the independent citing commissioner, Villem Venter of South Africa, examined the incident.
Sir Clive Woodward was in furious mood. “I am positive that this was a spear tackle by the two New Zealanders. The ball was nowhere near when each All Black appeared to pick up one of Brian’s legs and drive him backwards into the ground. It was an horrendous act and Brian was lucky to get away with just a dislocated shoulder. It could easily have been far worse.”
But in the early hours of this morning came the news that Venter could find no case to answer. This infuriated the Lions party and O’Driscoll spoke of his anger and frustration on his way for further scan treatment.
“I am obviously absolutely gutted, and I feel anger and frustration,” he said. “I’ve no doubt whatsoever that it was a spear tackle. I am convinced that the video evidence has plenty in it. I fought my way into the middle of a ruck to counter-ruck. Two guys picked up a leg each and forced me back into the ground. There is no way of knowing whether or not it was premeditated. The outcome is that I got to captain the Lions in a Test match for just over minute. There have been times when I’ve had to fight back the tears.”
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It was revealed that it took the Lions’ doctors nearly half an hour to put the shoulder back into place. Alastair Campbell, the former government spin doctor who is the Lions’ media manager, joined the debate, saying that although there was not one absolutely clear shot that showed what he called “the full, unexpurgated horror” of the incident, a combination of camera angles had left the Lions in no doubt that their captain was put off the tour by an illegal double tackle.
Grewcock was set to appear later this morning in front of the independent judicial officer, Terry Willis of Australia. He and Mealamu clashed in the in the 63rd minute of the match, and Mealamu appeared to remonstrate with the referee after the incident. Biting is considered the worst offence in the game and suspensions can run for at least a full year. Grewcock, who has had disciplinary problems throughout his career, was represented in the judicial hearing by Richard Smith, the
QC who is part of Woodward’s back-up party and who toured with England during the 2003 World Cup.
Woodward claimed yesterday morning that he had not had time to either see the incident on video or to speak to Grewcock himself, because he had been so busy with the O’Driscoll incident. Woodward also referred to an incident on the 2003 England tour of New Zealand in which Ali Williams, the New Zealand lock, appeared on video evidence to kick Josh Lewsey in the head, only for the incident to be deemed not worthy of citing. “The game is generally very clean these days but we do have these odd incidents occurring. This tour to date has been played in an excellent spirit, but that appeared to end last night,” he said.
Woodward described back-row forward Richard Hill’s injury as “a serious knee problem”, which sounds suspiciously like a recurrence of the difficulties that kept the 32-year-old out of action for most of last season.