John Roughan: No place for rugby thugs

One of the treats of being in Britain this year was to watch the Lions tour as the British saw it, especially the first test that has come back to haunt the All Blacks arriving in Britain about now.

British rugby enthusiasts come in two basic varieties: the products of English private schools and the Welsh. Specimens of both were in the small gatherings in front of a television in a Cambridge college common room on Saturday mornings in June.

The private school boys were particularly cocky. Lightly built, fresh-faced and well-spoken, they looked like they wouldn't survive a good tackle, but presumably had. Their clipped comments as they watched the first few tour matches suggested an intimate acquaintance with the more gruelling elements of the game.

And they rated those elements far above the flashy backline stuff. They were thoroughly imbued with the idea that rugby was meant to be played the way England had won the World Cup, and that the free-running frolics of the Southern Hemisphere's Super 12 were an affliction which could only end in tears in a real test.

This creed seemed to have suffered hardly a dent from the beatings the All Blacks had given England since the World Cup, and it was not at all shaken by the fact that Wales had just won the Six Nations championship with pace and flair.

Even the Welsh in our little gathering did not contest the wisdom of Sir Clive Woodward, not until he picked his team for the first test and preferred his lumbering World Cup veterans to the new stars of Wales. But even in their pique the Welsh seemed resigned, as many New Zealanders were, to the tedious efficacy of the Woodward way.

It was a sunny spring morning in England when we turned on the TV to see the crowd in Christchurch wrapped up against sleet. It didn't look like the weather for flair.

But nobody told the All Blacks. Winning good ball from the outset, they moved it wide, making it clear they meant to run Woodward's plan off the park. Dan Carter and Aaron Mauger threw cut-out passes or chipped through the Lions' defence with aplomb.

Just after halftime the New Zealand backs produced the try from heaven. Mauger took an inside pass from Carter, beat two tackles and fed Umaga who burst the rest of the defence and flung a perfect long pass for Sivivatu to run in.

Rugby was redeemed. The spirit of adventure had prevailed. At the end we barely remembered that tackle of Brian O'Driscoll.

Around the television there had not been much discussion when it happened. Just a heavy silence. The best Lions player had been up-ended without the ball and taken out of the game. The live pictures were clearer than the spectator's video released this week just in time for the All Blacks' arrival.

O'Driscoll was that rare type who can turn a match. He had done just that in one of the early games. The tourists had been sluggish and losing until a piece of twinkling footwork from the centre seemed to lift the team, and they won.

I'm sure the All Blacks noticed.

After the test, when people in England lamented the spear-tackle, I didn't argue. It is sickening to think a player may be deliberately injured in any sport and I want to believe it doesn't happen. But it is hard to deny your eyes.

Byron Kelleher was similarly done over by a South African forward in the first Tri-Nations test this year. Stupidly, our boys believe in playing on when all they can see is stars. Kelleher wasn't pulled off until he handed the ball to a Springbok defender for a runaway try.

It happens, and it shouldn't. It happens because rugby administrators let it happen, and because it can happen, even good-natured players can feel obliged, when presented with an opportunity, to maim for the team.

It will cease to happen when off-the-ball assaults are properly punished. Maybe, like the basketballer in court recently, rugby thuggery should be exposed to the criminal law.

The British papers treated the O'Driscoll incident surprisingly mildly, condemning the continued carping of Woodward's publicity flack, Alistair Campbell, as much as the All Black act.

But in retrospect we got off too lightly. If the All Black captain were to make a decent gesture of regret in Ireland next week it would be the least he should do. And considering the quality of the man, it would not surprise me if he did. Then we could celebrate June 25 for what it was - the day the stolid, flat defences that had won the 2003 World Cup were defeated by a spectacle of skill and joy.

The first test marked the end of an era in which defensive techniques have dominated the game, though defence dies hard. The Springboks rush-tackled their way to several victories this year and defensive screens survived in some corners of our National Provincial Championship. Canterbury and Waikato, in particular, relied on the strange reluctance of referees to enforce the offside line this year. Auckland's NPC title last weekend was another victory for a better spectacle. But the failure to enforce the offside rule contributed to a fairly dire domestic season.

If it happens next season, the television crew should come to our rescue. Let someone with a sideline microphone keep himself in line with the defending backs and simply tell us every time two or three of them are waiting offside. That's all it would take.

We would see the rule enforced, and the game Graham Henry gave us this year could only get better.