Lions in SA
Boks sorry O'Driscoll is leaving
2009-06-30 17:52
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Johannesburg - The Springboks are sorry that star British and Irish Lions centre Brian O'Driscoll has been forced to return home to Ireland following the injury that forced him off early in the second Test at Loftus last weekend.
O'Driscoll has undeniably been the star Lions act up to now, both in the tour games and in the Test matches, and while his previous tours were unhappy from a personal point of view, he can certainly look back on this last one as one where he confirmed his reputation as one of the best, if not the best, outside centres in the world.
In both the first and second Tests it was around O'Driscoll that so much of the Lions attacking dynamic revolved. His wizardry sucked in defenders, thus creating the space for others that enabled the Lions to create several scoring opportunities, particularly in the first Test.
O'Driscoll, the captain on the last Lions tour to New Zealand four years ago but injured in the early minutes of the opening Test match, was also a key member of the Lions leadership core. So he will be missed both for his on field and off-field role in the last week of the tour.
However, while this effectively means the Springbok chances of making it a 3-0 series whitewash have significantly increased, the Boks will not welcome his absence. At least not according to assistant coach Gary Gold.
"We want to test ourselves against the best, we want to be able to say we beat the best, and when it comes to players in his position, O'Driscoll is definitely one of the greatest there is," said Gold.
"O'Driscoll hurt us badly in both of the first two Tests, we found him hard to keep quiet on the field, and he was a big element in their attacking game. Knowing he may have got the better of us for much of the first two Tests makes the players determined to have one last crack at getting it right, and they will be sorry that he will be there on Saturday for them to measure themselves against."
Although he has not been in the starting lineup thus far, Jaques Fourie is similarly highly regarded by Gold and it will be an irony if the scorer of a crucial late Bok try to win the game at Loftus returns to the starting team for the first match where O'Driscoll will be absent.
Fourie was the one man who could have kept O'Driscoll in check in Durban and Pretoria, with his strong, powerful running being allied to his big hits as a tackler. With Zane Kirchner being spotted at the Bok training session on Tuesday (along with Dewald Potgieter), there is a chance that Adrian Jacobs, who has been poor so far in this series, will be dropped to accommodate Fourie.
Why Kirchner's possible inclusion might facilitate this is because it does not require too much assumption on the parts of those who do their analysis to figure out that the Bok coach is working within the guidelines of a race quota, be it official or unofficial.
Dropping Jacobs after Durban would have left him with just three black players, but with Kirchner added to the squad, he can still play four if Kirchner slots in for Frans Steyn in the No 15 jersey.