Becoming a Lion

Prologue

Saturday 6 July 2013, 6 p.m.

Novotel Sydney Olympic Park

Two hours before kick-off and we are gathering for the coach’s final address. It’s a standard hotel conference room, carpeted, with rows of chairs, flip-chart and projector screen. But given the enormity of what lies ahead, and the tension in the air, it feels more like we’ve been summoned to the headmaster’s office. Our coaches – Gats, Andy, Rob, Wig and Jenks – are sitting to the side of the room as we arrive in dribs and drabs and take our seats. There is no chat, just the odd whisper as the seconds pass until the appointed time. The only noise is from the Lions supporters outside. This hotel is barely a hundred metres from ANZ Stadium, so there are thousands of them gathered outside and they are already in raucous form. There are narrow gaps between the large panes of glass which form the outer wall of this room, so that while they can’t see us, we can certainly hear them. I’m trying to hear what it is that they’re chanting. Something about the queen. They’re taunting the Australian fans, to the tune of the Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’. Eventually, I figure it out.

Your next queen is Camilla Parker-Bowles!

Camilla Parker-Bowles,

Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Your next queen is Camilla Parker-Bowles!

Camilla Parker-Bowles,

Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Over and over. As I twig, I realize that pennies are dropping, or have already dropped, all over the room. Like the boy in the headmaster’s office, I am ready to explode with laughter but also determined that I won’t be the first to do it. I exchange glances with both Andy and Rob and realize that they’re the same, struggling to suppress giggles. I study Gats, too. In a way, he’s under more pressure than any of us. It’s the deciding game in the Test series. The whole concept of the Lions is on the line. His own reputation is on the line, you could argue, given the controversial nature of his selection. So there’s a lot on his shoulders. But unless I’m mistaken, those shoulders are quietly shaking with laughter.

You’ve got to love the Lions supporters, but for most of this afternoon I’ve been cursing them. It seemed a clever idea by the management to check us into the Novotel around lunchtime, in order to avoid getting stuck in a traffic jam this afternoon – Homebush, where ANZ Stadium is located, is the guts of an hour from the centre of Sydney even outside rush-hour. Once we’d checked in and had some lunch, myself and Seanie O’Brien grabbed a room, and after watching TV for a while we decided to get some kip. But how can you sleep to a constant soundtrack of ‘Delilah’, ‘Ireland’s Call’, ‘O Flower of Scotland’ and ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’? For the love of Jesus, would you put a sock in it? Please?

I went down and bought some earplugs from the little shop at reception, then back up to the room where Seanie was snoozing happily. But the earplugs brought no relief, only discomfort. I took a pillow and went down to the team room, which was in a slightly quieter part of the hotel, found a corner and lay down on the carpet. I think I got a few minutes’ shut-eye. But to be reduced to this, a few hours before the biggest game in my career, is not ideal.

To be honest, very little about this week could be described as ideal. I’ve been bunged up with a chest infection and on medication, hacking up gunk all week. It probably didn’t help that the weather in Noosa was pretty grim. You head up to the Sunshine Coast for a couple of days’ R&R, having been assured that the weather will be perfect for the beach – temperatures in the low twenties and constant sunshine – then you get there and it’s piddling down.

A good few Lions let off steam when we got to Noosa last Sunday evening – some who knew their tour was already over, some who knew they’d be involved today but just felt like having a few beers to unwind. I remember wondering what it would have been like up there if we’d been 2–0 up in the series! But we weren’t 2–0 up. It was 1–1 and Australia had momentum after winning in Melbourne. We needed something different. And that was when Gats dropped his bombshell.

I didn’t see it coming. I knew that with Jamie Roberts coming in at 12, there was a decision to be made at 13. With Sam Warburton injured, Brian looked the obvious choice to take over the captaincy. When I saw him doing media on Monday, I made the same assumption as everyone else. But Gats dropped him. He was such a focal point last week and suddenly he’s not even in the twenty-three. He has handled himself with great dignity, even though all of Ireland seems to be outraged on his behalf.

After I sympathized with him, I had to put the whole selection issue to one side. It’s not easy, because Brian’s a friend of mine, but there are times in professional sport when you have to be selfish. This is a Test week, and it’s one with its own particular difficulties. It was hard to shake the end-of-term feeling from our training session in Noosa on Wednesday. We were sloppy, lacking in precision, and it pissed me off no end. Andy Farrell tried to reassure me afterwards, saying that it was always going to be a difficult session after we’d had a couple of days off. But it was just as bad on Thursday and I let rip at the forwards. I don’t think it went down very well.

But maybe we needed a bit of narkiness to give us an edge. Back in Sydney yesterday, everything seemed to fall into place in the captain’s run. We did some contact just to liven things up and it went well. When we ran as a team, we were crisp, accurate. Alun-Wyn Jones, our skipper in Sam’s absence, spoke well afterwards. Back at the hotel, Andy spoke really well about the need to find a new level of intensity, an intensity that would set us apart from the Wallabies. Last night I was feeling a lot better about things. Sometimes you can train crap for most of the week but then produce a performance when it matters.

So I’m feeling positive following Gats’s final address, positive as I stand on halfway thirty seconds before kick-off, when the referee, Romain Poite, gives me a quick wink. It’s incredibly noisy in here. This stadium was home to the 2000 Olympics, so I was expecting it to be one of those soulless arenas where the players are separated from spectators by a running track. But the track has been covered over with extra rows of seats, so the crowd is right on top of us. There’s a strange intimacy for a stadium with nearly 84,000 people in it.

I survey my options for the kick-off. The Wallabies have two-man pods – catcher and lifter – scattered evenly around their half of the pitch: Ben Mowen and George Smith to the right just short of the ten-metre line, James Horwill and Ben Alexander to the left of the posts on the twenty-two, Kane Douglas and Benn Robinson level with them but hugging the right touchline. They are also offering me Israel Folau, all on his own on the ten-metre line to my left.

Folau has been one of Australia’s players of the series, but their key man is undoubtedly Will Genia. He is their director of operations, their pace-setter, the one who can deliver in the tightest of corners. I see him lurking behind the Douglas–Robinson pod. Maybe if I can kick high and long beyond them, our chasers can catch Genia, man and ball, and take him out of his director’s role for the opening couple of phases of the game. Maybe we can unsettle the Wallabies.

Sure enough, as the ball drops from a noisy sky into their twenty-two, Douglas loses his bearings and decides to leave it for Genia, who is taken by surprise and makes probably his first mistake of the series …

Johnny Sexton

BECOMING A LION

PENGUIN IRELAND

Contents

Prologue

Saturday 6 July 2013, 6 p.m.