Publications
Partners
Johannesburg - Willie John McBride, captain of the 1974 Lions to South Africa and with coach Syd Millar plotter of the Springboks downfall in that series, believes the British and Irish Lions assault on the 2009 Springboks should begin in the scrums as it did then.
McBride, often referred to as "the leader of the pride", is probably the greatest Lions rugby player of all time. And when he speaks, it's worth listening.
"We've got to get our scrum right, we've got to get in their face and we've got to take the game to them," McBride told the British Lions website.
"In 1974, we had one hell of a pack of forwards but we had a super frontrow.
"I know the game's changed, I know the game's professional and I know that scrummaging has changed but, whether we like it or not, I still believe that the team that can scrummage is the team that wins the match."
His adversary in that series, former Springbok captain Hannes Marais, also believes the scrum remains an important pillar of victory - and Bok coach Peter de Villiers would be well-advised to take note and perhaps reconsider his stated objective to play one of the world's best scrumming hookers, John Smit, at tighthead.
The younger generation of rugby followers may well ask who Willie John McBride is.
The answer is simple: the greatest Lions player of all time. Yes, there may have been better players through the years, but this former captain of the Lions team that in 1974 became the first team to beat South Africa in a full series of Test matches - France had done so in two Tests in 1958 - had an aura around him.
And a record like none before or since.
McBride had reached his late teens without so much as picking up a rugby ball. By the time he was 21 he was an Ireland international and a full-grown Lion, playing in the third and fourth Tests in South Africa in 1962, according to the Lions website.
Seventeen Tests were included in the Irish lock from Ballymena's 68 Lions matches on five tours between 1962 and 1974 as a player (he was also manager in 1983). And although it took nine successive Test defeats before he first tasted success in the famous red jersey, the wins were the highlights of his life.
First he was the pack leader when the Lions beat New Zealand in 1971 -and then he was captain of the Lions that went through their 1974 tour of South Africa unbeaten.
That series victory began in the scrums. And Willie John believes this should again be the focus of the Lions' attack on the Boks come the three-Test series in June and July.
