Lions secure their place in history

South Africa 15 British Isles 18 Van der Westhuizen Tries Montg omery, Joubert Penalties Jenkins 5 Drop goal Guscott

Ian McGeechan lost his hair - all of it, as near as makes no difference - in Durban on Saturday night. No great surprise there, you may think; the rugby superpowers of the southern hemisphere have been the primary cause of premature baldness among poor, deluded British coaches for more generations than anyone cares to remember and no one who watched a vengeful Springbok pack tear into the Lions amid the chilling, colosseum-like atmosphere of King's Park would have blamed the softly spoken Scot had he left the ground early in search of a wig.

This was different, though, for McGeechan was going nowhere. He stayed rooted to his seat on the touchline as his side squeezed out a scarcely credible second successive Test victory over the South Africans and then, true to his word and wager, allowed Keith Wood to wield the celebratory razor. Geech may now resemble a Devil's Island convict straight out of Papillon, but it is the Springboks who are under serious threat of deportation.

It is difficult to describe the full extent of the wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the Bokke hordes as they survey the wreckage of their world champion status; suffice to say that the public scapegoating will continue for a good while yet. After all, there are so many people to blame: Henry Honiball and Percy Montgomery for missing their goal-kicks, Didier Mene for his occasionally flawed refereeing and, most of all, Carel du Plessis for daring to lose a series against the "pussycats", as the Lions are mockingly referred to by the die-hard triumphalists of South African rugby's vast hinterland.

Whether Du Plessis survives this trauma remains to be seen but with the All Blacks and the Wallabies next on the agenda in the Tri-Nations tournament, the omens are not good. The Lions' extraordinary ability to successfully man the barricades has brought the tumbrils on to the blood-stained streets of Bok-dom and Du Plessis will do extremely well to escape with his head.

McGeechan has no such worries. Even though the Lions failed to bring their exhilarating provincial form to the Tests, the scores on the boards tell the only tale that British and Irish rugby needs to hear. Agreed, they were badly outplayed on Saturday and, yes, they were fortunate to fall on the right side of some of M Mene's more peculiar decisions. But coaching at the top level has every bit as much to do with the abstractions of rugby - unity, spirit, a sense of purpose, the ethic of collective responsibility - as it is about tactics and McGeechan has graduated with honours in all disciplines.

It was discipline that allowed the Lions to keep track even though they could barely lay a hand on the ball for the first hour of this astonishing match. As Alan Tait, whose try had wrapped up the first Test, said: "When the South African forwards came at us with that rush from the kick-off, I thought `Jesus, this is something else'. The first time I went anywhere near the ball I was smashed into the ground. But it was a matter of staying calm, keeping our shape and making our tackles. We did that, everyone for each other, and I'm proud to have been a part of it."

Inevitably, given the extreme nature of the onslaught, the Lions missed the odd trick. Joost van der Westhuizen's close-range opening try on 35 minutes was almost unavoidable, for the South Africans had laid siege so ferociously to the Lions line in the build-up that the tourists were in danger of tackling themselves to a standstill before the half-time whistle. But Neil Jenkins and Tait were both at fault when Honiball and Danie van Schalkwyk ushered Montgomery in for a debut score a minute into the second period and John Bentley will not want to see too many re-runs of the missed tackle that allowed Andre Joubert a third try down the left touchline.

Such errors in such unforgiving circumstances might have broken the resolve of a less cohesive side. Not these Lions. With Lawrence Dallaglio in magnificent fettle - "I'll treasure every moment for a long, long time", said the battle-scarred Wasp after his battle royal with Andre Venter and Ruben Kruger - and Scott Gibbs at his rumbustious best, the tourists mined the deepest seams of desire and self-belief and came back more defiant than ever.

There were defining moments throughout the encounter: Dallaglio's staggering wrap-up of the mammoth Os du Randt saved one first-half try, Gibbs' strong- arm hit on Joubert denied another and Austin Healey, on for the last four minutes as a replacement for Tait, was equally brave in rescuing the ball beneath his own posts following Jenkins' misjudgement of a Honiball bomb.

Running like a spine down the back of the Lions' effort was Jenkins' calm, collected goal-kicking. Once again, he did not even look like missing even though his two-first-half penalties were awkward, and that stone- cold accuracy under the most intense pressure ensured that for all their possession and territorial domination, the Boks could never quite give the Lions the slip.

Joubert's try put the South Africans 15-9 ahead - as big an advantage as they had mustered in some 130 minutes of knife-edge rugby - but two more Jenkins penalties in the 65th and 73rd minutes were enough to wipe the slate clean. Mene's decision to award him the last of those chances was plainly wrong - for whatever reason, he misread Keith Wood's transparent knock-on as an illegal piece of ball-snaffling by Andre Venter - and the Boks will still be fuming about it when the Lions return in 2005. "They can fume all they like," beamed Wood as he recalled the incident.

So, it all boiled down to one last Lions attack, created out of next to nothing by Wood's unpredictable kicking habits, Jeremy Davidson's line-out athleticism and Gregor Townsend's bold run to the Bokke posts.

Even then, it might have gone awry; with Townsend half suffocating under a pile of Springbok bodies, Matt Dawson might have chosen to dart for the line himself rather than feed the lurking Jeremy Guscott. He made the right decision, though, and Guscott, revelling in the time and space that is somehow available to all genuinely great players irrespective of the drama of the situation, did the necessary.

As the bemused and befuddled Springbok supporters doused their barbecues and sloped off home, Guscott leant against the wall of the King's Park reception room and smiled quietly to himself. "You don't get many of these moments," he said. "I've had my fair share of good times but this is massive. I can't imagine any way of overriding the thrill I've just had." Some player, some Lions team.

SOUTH AFRICA: A Joubert (Natal); A Snyman (Northern Transvaal), P Montgomery (Western Province), D van Schalkwyk (Northern Transvaal), P Rossouw (Western Province); H Honiball (Natal), J van der Westhuizen (Northern Transvaal); O du Randt (Free State), N Drotske (Free State), A Garvey (Natal), H Strydom (Gauteng), M Andrews (Natal), R Kruger (Northern Transvaal), G Teichmann (Natal, capt), A Venter (Free State). Replacements: F van Heerden (Western Province) for Kruger, 51; D Theron (Griqualand West) for Garvey, 67.

BRITISH ISLES: N Jenkins (Pontypridd and Wales); J Bentley (Newcastle and England), J Guscott (Bath and England), S Gibbs (Swansea and Wales), A Tait (Newcastle and Scotland); G Townsend (Northampton and Scotland), M Dawson (Northampton and England); T Smith (Watsonians and Scotland), K Wood (Harlequins and Ireland), P Wallace (Saracens and Ireland), M Johnson (Leicester and England, capt), J Davidson (London Irish and Ireland), L Dallaglio (Wasps and England), T Rodber (Northampton and England), R Hill (Saracens and England). Replacements: N Back (Leicester and England) for Hill, 56; A Healey (Leicester and England) for Tait, 76; E Miller (Leicester and Ireland) for Rodber, 77.

Referee: D Mene (France).