Lion King Tana roars
26 Sep 2007
The only thing Brian O’Driscoll and Tana Umaga agreed on was that England and British and Irish Lions lock Danny Grewcrock was a meathead.
Umaga’s biography, Up Close, is due for release and New Zealand’s impressive rugby site, Rugbyheaven.co.nz ran content of the chapter dealing with Umaga and Keven Mealamu ending O’Driscoll’s Lions tour.
We’ve heard O’Driscoll’s rants for years, now here’s Umaga’s version, courtesy of Rugbyheaven.co.nz
I was very enthusiastic going into the first test in Christchurch. I’d been looking forward to it for two years and couldn’t wait to give it everything I had. Not even some of the worst weather Christchurch could throw at us could change that. Everyone knows – or thinks they know – what happened in the first 90 seconds. I went into a ruck and cleaned out Brian O’Driscoll. I was standing over the ball trying to protect it when he bounced back to have another crack at disrupting our possession. We were tussling as he tried to get through and I grabbed his leg to try to unbalance him, a technique I’d used before and still use to this day. What I didn’t realise was that Keven Mealamu was doing the same thing on the other side of the ruck. As I got one of O’Driscoll’s legs up, Keven hoisted his other leg and drove him back. He ended up with both feet off the ground, not in control of himself or the situation, a position rugby players often find themselves in. When we let him go he came down and what happened, happened. I didn’t think anything of it, I just took off.
When the whistle blew and he was being attended to by his medical staff, I was completely focused on the job in hand. The game I’d been preparing for since the 2003 World Cup had just started, the pressure was on, and I was concentrating on what we were going to do next. It didn’t really occur to me to go and check on what was happening in their camp. There was no conscious decision not to go over: I didn’t do it then because I didn’t do it, period; I’d never done it for anybody else. I was a competitive animal out there. The flipside of that was my bedside manner when my players got injured: if I saw someone in my team on the ground, I’d say, ‘What’s wrong with you? Just get up.’ I was always telling cousin Jerry that. When they carted O’Driscoll off I thought Jesus, major, then I put it out of my mind and got on with the game.
I didn’t go and see him after the game but I ran into a group of their players who weren’t going to the after-match function and asked Richard Hill how Brian was. He said he’d gone to hospital. Again, I didn’t think anything of it. When we got back to the hotel after the dinner, Keven and I were told that we’d been cited so we had a meeting with NZRU lawyer Steve Cottrell to run through what had happened. While we were doing that, news came through that the Citing Commissioner had ruled there was no case to answer. We were relieved but not surprised; from the outset our view was that since there’d been no malice or intent, the matter shouldn’t go any further.
The Lions leadership and their high-powered spin doctor Alistair Campbell wouldn’t take ‘no case to answer’ for an answer and found a way to take the matter much further. The sustained personal attack they launched against me was hard to believe and even harder to stomach. You don’t want to take it personally but it’s almost impossible not to when another player, a guy you had some respect for, attacks your character in the most direct and damning terms. My first thought was geez, don’t be a sook; there’s no use crying about it, man, it’s over. On the other hand I could understand how bitterly disappointed O’Driscoll was. He would have been just like me: buzzing with anticipation, really up for it, and desperate to make a point on the field.
There was a lot of talk about the Lions’ response to the haka. Someone had supposedly advised O’Driscoll to kneel down and pick a blade of grass, which he’d done, and we’d supposedly regarded that as disrespectful. The truth was we didn’t care what they did. I noticed him doing it but just thought, oh, that’s different. Opposition teams had tried a variety of responses and our attitude was always the same: whatever. We didn’t understand what he was doing so they were one up on us there, but it’s rubbish to suggest that it had anything to do with what happened at that ruck. The media tends to provide interpretations of what they think has happened, as opposed to what actually did happen, and it’s often all that speculation which creates the angst and inflames the situation.
At first, the kerfuffle didn’t really bother me. It was a case of, oh well that’s the way it is. But it just snowballed and O’Driscoll kept going on about the fact that I hadn’t rung him to say sorry. I’d actually tried to get hold of him on the Monday via the Lions’ media liaison person but I never heard back. By this stage we were in Wellington and it just kept cranking up and I was getting a bit angry. I finally obtained his number and got hold of him but it wasn’t a warm exchange. He was still angry that I hadn’t gone over to see how he was and once he’d got that off his chest, he accused me of being involved in a lot of off-the-ball incidents. The Lions hadn’t been impressed with the way I’d played, he said, and I had to watch it. I said, ‘Don’t talk to me about off-the-ball incidents, talk to your own players.’ (With all the fuss the Lions had made over the O’Driscoll incident, it had almost been overlooked that their lock Danny Grewcock, a player with a history of foul play, had been cited, found guilty, and banned for biting Keven Mealamu.) ‘Look at Grewcock,’ I said. ‘He’s a meathead.’ ‘Yeah, he is a meathead,’ he said. ‘You can’t change that but we’re better than that. We shouldn’t play like those guys. We thought you were a gentleman.’
While he went on along those lines, I was thinking to myself, hang on, this is a game I take seriously. And I did: I aimed to let an opponent know I was out there and get into his mind so that next time he’d have a look to see if I was coming. I’d body-check him on the way through or if I came up quickly and the pass didn’t go to him, I’d still give him a little reminder that I was around so he knew that if he didn’t have his wits about him, he could get hit, and hit hard. I had no qualms about it; that was how I played. That’s the gamesmanship of rugby. Players sledge. I sledged a bit and did so in that game. I was always trying to get an edge and in that respect I was no different to a lot of players.
But when he started talking about off-the-ball stuff and me not being a gentleman I thought, oh, you’re reaching now. I never went out to commit foul play: I didn’t punch guys on the ground or stomp on them. So I said, ‘Oh well, mate, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’m sorry for what happened to you but there was no intent in it; it was one of those unfortunate things that happen in rugby.’ He said, ‘Yeah, but you could’ve helped it.’ ‘Okay, mate,’ I said, ‘all the best.’ And that was where we left it.
Instead of trying to get on the front foot straight away, our PR strategy was to let the storm blow itself out. But it didn’t blow itself out and when I eventually held a press conference a few days later it felt like a hollow exercise. By that stage I was all for just taking it on the chin and getting on with it, but our media people wanted to respond to what had become a pretty relentless and inflammatory – as in ‘I could have died’ – campaign. I’d been getting a lot of support from the team all week and at the press conference I was backed up by the leadership group which was great, even though the exercise itself felt like it was all a bit late. Whether it could have been nipped in the bud is a moot point given the intensity of their media blitz but for a couple of days they had the floor to themselves and they made the most of it. Even when I was being bombarded with questions I couldn’t help seeing the funny side of it: poor little me surrounded by all those big, burly forwards as if I couldn’t protect myself. It was good to have my say but I wanted to do my talking on the field.
Clive Woodward had talked his team up, saying they were the best prepared Lions ever and wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the 2001 Lions tour of Australia, which was a crack at Graham Henry who’d coached that team. That kind of thing – attacking our people, talking themselves up – just steeled us. We wanted to show them that they weren’t as good as they thought they were and Woodward wasn’t as good as he thought he was.
They started the second test very well, scoring under the posts virtually from the kick-off. I wasn’t worried because we hadn’t had the ball or played any rugby. My message was let’s get the ball, get down there, and give it a crack. They launched another attack but this time they dropped the ball. I picked it up and gave it to Daniel Carter because I knew he’d do something with it and I was able to run off him and score. It was a team try, pure and simple. I didn’t see it as some sort of personal statement – ‘straight back at you’ – because I never felt like it was me against them.
At times, though, they seemed to think it was them against me. As a ruck broke up, Paul O’Connell loomed over me ranting and raving. As I got up, their props Julian White and Gethin Jenkins started pushing and shoving. I knew it was going to happen at some stage so I just said, ‘Come on, any time, just bring it.’ I backed away slowly looking at them and saying, ‘Are you going to start playing soon or what?’ Later, when O’Connell went down, I went over to him as he was rolling around the ground and said, ‘Mate, don’t give up now, we’re just getting started.’ He jumped straight up. When Stephen Jones came on for Jonny Wilkinson he took the ball up yelling, ‘For our captain!’ like something out of Braveheart. I said, ‘Are you serious?’ You could see how they were trying to motivate themselves but it became quite laughable.
127 Comments
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26 Sep 2007, 09:46 am
Big ****:
“The whoe world has now seen that incident and recognise it as a disgraceful act.”
Nonsense. Who is your “whoe world”? I think you mean a few Paddys and Poms.
It was absolutely sickening listening to Brian whine on and on. I think the best thing you could do as a fan of his is keep as quiet as possible about the whole thing in the hope that people will forget about it.
God knows he’s done nothing more memorable on a rugby field since his “life-threatening” injury.
26 Sep 2007, 09:47 am
49:Spot on,great player but a better captain.
26 Sep 2007, 09:50 am
Kaksiok,you have a point,but imagine if Bakkies and Butch had done that to one of your boys (or to an Aussie),the world will be calling for their heads.
Tana and co were very lucky to get away with it.
26 Sep 2007, 09:56 am
Take it a step further. If they had done that to Habana, what would have been said in SA!!? The whinging by BOD afterwards is a legacy of Alistair Campbell’s media machine, although I am reminded now about some more Irish whinging after the last 6N game against Scotland at Murrayfield when O’Sullivan accused a Scot of “throttling” ROG at the bottom of a ruck! That was a good one.
26 Sep 2007, 09:59 am
And since then ROG never played at full throttle again.
Well thats obviously not taking playing the machines and the tables into consideration.
26 Sep 2007, 10:01 am
Agreed londonshark, if South Africans had pulled off that tackle they would have been banned for an inordinate period of time. But that wouldn’t have made it right.
It was unfortunate that BOD got hurt, but he should have dried his eyes and taken it like a man. I have no respect for him (and, incidentally, my grandfather was born in Ireland).
26 Sep 2007, 10:02 am
We would have declared a Jihad against NZL if they did that to Habana.
Then we would have told George Bush they have oil,and harbour terrorists.
26 Sep 2007, 10:04 am
And that the Hobbits are hiding weapons of mass destruction in Frodo’s ring.
26 Sep 2007, 10:05 am
Kaksioek,for sure.
26 Sep 2007, 10:05 am
Actually I think ROG (like every good Irishman) prefers the horses to the tables and machines
26 Sep 2007, 10:08 am
ROG is kak kak kak. I couldn’t believe some moron British Journo put him in his World 15 ahead of Carter last year.
26 Sep 2007, 10:10 am
“‘For our captain!’ like something out of Braveheart. I said, ‘Are you serious?’ You could see how they were trying to motivate themselves but it became quite laughable.”
LMAO, the poms are’nt quite right in the head are they. simply dont get it.
26 Sep 2007, 10:11 am
Hahahaha he is indeed kak with a capital S. If anyone in that Irish backline is overrated it is him. Good player for Munster in the same way that Willem de Waal is a great player for FS!
26 Sep 2007, 10:11 am
Speaking of flyhalves, Butch is having a great World Cup. Andre is nowhere.
26 Sep 2007, 10:12 am
Ooooooh careful cab. Jones is a Welshman, not technically a pommie!
26 Sep 2007, 10:16 am
#64. Just as well he can kick with that new ball everyone is complaining about. His field kicking against the poms was excellent. Great player is Butch, hasn’t yet fulfilled his potential, heres hoping. Still get hacked off with the English commentary who can’t let go of the past. Have yet to watch a game where Butch has made a strong tackle and the commentator hasn’t made a comment about his old style of “tackling”. Let it go and leave the guy alone!
26 Sep 2007, 10:18 am
#49 agree but Francois Pienaar was NOT a great player, just a great leader.
26 Sep 2007, 10:24 am
jonnymain:
I watched the Ireland v France game the other night. One of the Irish players cut the French fullback in half and the commentators went on and on about what a great tackle it was and how he led with the shoulder and one arm but then wrapped the other arm around the tackled player. But it was quite legal they assured us, oh yes. Perspective is everything, isn’t it?
26 Sep 2007, 10:27 am
right you are jonny, but they all have that war attitude, its the way they view the game, only way they know how…all a bit dom.
26 Sep 2007, 10:34 am
Personally cab I’d consider the English to be alone in that mentality. The Welsh have a rich tradition of producing flair players, not the type to try to run over the opposition – they just aren’t big enough! Will always defend my Celtic brothers against any charges of Englishness!
26 Sep 2007, 10:54 am
“for our capt”
doesn’t quite send the same chill down ones’ spine as
“GERONIMO!”
does it?
16. we’ve all forgotten about that tackle now and Macaw certainly didn’t go on about it, at the time or 1,2,or 3 years later….and I doubt that he will be writing a book about it somehow, he has bigger brighter events in his career.
Mortlock is the #1 centre in the last 10 years IMO, he is a fantastic linebreaker, a reasonably smart (for an Aussie!) distributor, and an accurate goalkicker as well.
26 Sep 2007, 10:56 am
That guy is a God.
26 Sep 2007, 11:03 am
Mortlock is a big, strong guy but for me hasn’t got the class or gamebreaking ability of BOD.
26 Sep 2007, 11:06 am
fair enough jonny, the welsh seem like a decent lot, but ‘for our captain’ – LMAO, you’d have to hose.
26 Sep 2007, 11:08 am
Yeah that was a bit of a bad one! We all say stuff at one time or another that doesn’t quite sound right!
26 Sep 2007, 11:11 am
1. Sheridan 2. Mealamu 3. Hayman
4. Bakkies 5. Matfield
6. Burger 7. McCaw 8. Juan/Collins
9. FdP 10. Carter
12. Giteau/Jauzion 13. Mortlock/Bod
11. Habana 14. Roc 15. Latham
I’d also go Mortlock, but Bod is very good.
26 Sep 2007, 11:17 am
Tana is your generic mediocre player who plays dirty, yet because he’s from NZ he simply gets the reputation of being “hard”. He’s the prime example of a guy who had a few skills, and as age starts to take them away he substitutes them with dangerous and illegal tactics (see also: Brian Lima) so as to keep some edge on the field.
To paraphrase Big Hit, could you even imagine the consequences if Dan Carter had been drilled like that by 2 Boks? We’d be looking at life bans, without a doubt.
I do sympathise with BOD that he’s been labelled a whinger, as I feel he was done a serious injustice, and his presence would’ve made the Lions tour look a hell of a lot different.
26 Sep 2007, 11:22 am
“and New Zealand’s impressive rugby site, Rugbyheaven.co.nz…….”
Could it be that we will be reading some more news from the land of the long white cloud from now on?
After all this sucking up I’m sure we’d have to get something out of the deal…
26 Sep 2007, 11:25 am
Oh no cab, not that old debate again!
Here’s mine (on current form)
1.Woodcock 2.Smit (capt) 3.Hayman
4. Thion 5. Vic
6.Juan 8.Chabal 7.McCaw
9.FdP 10.Carter
12.Giteau 13.JF
11.Habana 15.Latham 14.Clerc
26 Sep 2007, 11:26 am
I am really sorry that this kind of public sledging ever tokk place in Rugby. Brian O’Driscoll is without a doubt one of the most talented and legendary players ever to grace the field and I find it dissapointing that he actied in the way he did. I’m taking the comments from both sides with a pinch of salt of course.
On the other hand Tana is an absolute legend of the game himself. I really don’t thnik he did it on purpose, and it wasn’t even that big a deal.
I’m certain that Brian wouldn’t have acted the way he did if he didn’t have such a bunch of idiots surrounding him. I blame it all on the English.
26 Sep 2007, 11:29 am
BO who. oh yea, the captain of that shite team who nearly lost to the georgians. tonga gave us a scare too but at least tonga have a long history and no disrespect to those awesome georgian forwards.
Irish on the way home to guinnessland. doesnt sound that bad actually!
26 Sep 2007, 11:40 am
lol johhny,
yours is probably more representative, giving the french a shout and all, also like clerk and rougerie, french have some great wingers and centres.
26 Sep 2007, 11:56 am
Yeah, Jauzion would normally be in my team but he hasn’t fired yet. Impressed with Clerc above the rest as well, reminds me a bit of Dominici from a few years back. Chabal, well anyone who can break Ali Williams jaw without even trying gets my vote!
26 Sep 2007, 12:12 pm
O’Driscoll’s an incredible player but an absolute hypocrite. He is always involved in off the ball incidents and unecessary niggle.
And Woodward with his spin doctor…I hope modern rugby does not adopt this kind of cr*p.
26 Sep 2007, 12:15 pm
Very interesting post.
26 Sep 2007, 12:34 pm
Kiakaha #9.
Amen.
26 Sep 2007, 12:40 pm
OCO #30,
The Citing Official on the day was a Saffa. He pronounced there was no case to answer.
26 Sep 2007, 12:45 pm
Rugby Princess,
Your “sweetheart” post ……as always a joy to read.
Your feminine touch and humour bring light to threads where darkness prevails.
26 Sep 2007, 12:50 pm
Fern #31.
You dumb arse. Try swallowing your own tongue instead of spouting medical facts you nothing about.
26 Sep 2007, 12:55 pm
LondonShark,#47.
I agree. Fully. Without reservation.
Not only was/is BOD a great player, but he carries an averge Team to heights above their normal calling.
And he is a fookin great guy as well. And so is Tana.
26 Sep 2007, 13:04 pm
Twig,
“He’s the prime example of a guy who had a few skills, and as age starts to take them away he substitutes them with dangerous and illegal tactics ”
21 Tests as AB Capt, for 18 wins.
Somehow I think you may be a prime example of something akin to a ……..well you get the picture don’t you.
26 Sep 2007, 13:06 pm
With or without O’Driscoll the Lions would still have been tamed. He is a girl’s blouse. Best centre in the world, my hairy white arse!!!!
Look forward to the Lions arriving in SA next time around.
26 Sep 2007, 13:09 pm
Can’t wait for the Ireland vs Argentina game on Sunday….. It’s going to be a cracker!!!!
26 Sep 2007, 13:17 pm
I think Brian O’Driscoll is a very good, even great, player, but I lost a lot of respect for him after this incident. The way he bleated and whinged about what happened to him afterwards was frankly embarrassing.
There have been many far more blatant incidents of much more damaging foul play in the history of rugby, but there has never been a longer period of moaning afterwards.
Playing the victim for so long is not worthy of a captain of his country and this attitude seems to have permeated through his team. Ireland look unlikely to even qualify for the quarter finals and in the press they have not stopped moaning about the opposition, the group of death and the victimisation they have received in the press
Only Keven Mealamu and Tana Umaga truly know whether they intended to hurt him or whether it was just the unfortunate incident that Tana Umaga described. All the conjecture or accusations will never clear that up, but Brian O’Driscoll should put it behind him and get on with his career and stop whining like a stuffed pig.
26 Sep 2007, 13:32 pm
has anybody read gavin henson’s auto . well in the auto gavin explains that bod tried VERY HARD to take him out of the game in the 05 6N .
gavin claims bod dug his fingers into his eyes swearing at the same time . spear tackles happen on the playing feild half the time if not all the time unintentional , but gauging someones eyes ??? .
26 Sep 2007, 13:36 pm
I wouldn’t trust Henson any more than I trust Manto Tshabalala.
26 Sep 2007, 13:40 pm
remember BOD is the same guy who said in a pre WC interview that injuries to his oppositions would be an advantage to his team . though some say its an irish humour , any anthropologists out there ?
truth is said in jest i always say .
26 Sep 2007, 13:41 pm
96
you skim so ! he showed me bruises ( kidding you )
26 Sep 2007, 13:43 pm
I think that that Umaga and Mealamu were lucky there was no video footage of the incident, because if there was they would have been banned. I think they deserved some kind of ban for what they did, maybe it wasn’t intentional but they all players have a responsibility not to drop a player on his head.
26 Sep 2007, 13:56 pm
In his bio, does he mention the AB’s team talk that a big, early tackle on BOD was key to throwing a confident Lion’s team off-track. No. So the article is out of context!
BOD never recovered for the series and neither did the Lions. As a spectacle the series was ruined with that early, single ‘tackle’
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