Those early scrums aside, however, Wood and his prop forward colleagues gave away next to nothing at the tight. “They really took us on at the start, hitting us and driving us very hard and very quickly,” said Martin Johnson, the Lions captain. “It was unnerving – when they got the weight on they were as strong as anything I’ve ever encountered – but we knew if we could ride the storm, they couldn’t scrummage like that all match.”What was more, the Lions’ line-out worked rather more efficiently than that of the Springboks’, especially during a second half in which Jeremy Davidson gave Mark Andrews and Hannes Strydom a serious seeing-to in the ball-winning arena. The sight of Dawson, a veritable waif and stray in the company of the ogreish Springboks, bringing Os du Randt to earth deep inside the Lions 22 was inspiration enough, but it was Keith Wood’s staggering performance in the loose that fatally undermined South African attempts to generate a modicum of momentum.The Irish hooker did everything right in the set-piece, too, although he later confessed to being more than a little concerned for his immediate safety as the Bokke front row charged like a buffalo herd into the opening set-pieces.

“Our defence was awesome in the sense that all the players were in on it; they refused to panic and stayed behind the back foot even when the pressure was pouring down on us. We conceded one penalty for offside defending in the whole match One Now that is what I call discipline.”With knobs on, actually. Apart from Gibbs’ mistimed tackle on Teichmann, which led directly to Russell Bennett’s try on 44 minutes, the Lions were utterly secure in their first-up hits and magnificently committed whenever their cover defence was called into action. As in every other match on this tour the Lions finished the stronger and Alan Tait’s straightforward injury-time run-in in the left corner – Scott Gibbs’ piledriving run into the South African 22 paved the way – was no more than the tourists deserved.Not simply because they showed more wit and imagination during the nerve- shredding endgame but because for the previous 70 minutes, they had defended the stockade as though their lives depended on it.”One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned on this tour is how to play well without the ball,” said Ian McGeechan, the Lions’ coach.

But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I?”Coming as it did just seven minutes from the end of a psychologically debilitating and physically exhausting contest, Dawson’s piece de resistance left the shattered Boks with nowhere to turn. The initial 10 metres were always going to be the most difficult and the efforts of the pack allowed me to get an outside arc past Kruger.”Was the dummy deliberate? “Yes. “The most important part of the try’s creation was the platform established by the forwards at the scrum. Some effort for a supposed no-hoper.”I haven’t got away with one of those for a very long time,” grinned the 24-year-old Liverpudlian whose all-round sporting aptitude as a teenager allowed him to play right-back for Chelsea boys, wicketkeeper for Buckinghamshire and, no doubt, to walk on water at the local swimming pool. Hell, Gareth Edwards would have struggled to match it.Dawson’s sublime moment of inspiration will be recalled as long as Lions’ Tests remain a feature in the cluttered landscape of international rugby; the quicksilver sidestep to escape the clutches of the Springbok terminator, Ruben Kruger, on the short side of a scrum, the perfect diagonal line to create space for Ieuan Evans’ distracting inside run, the one-handed sucker-punch dummy that left Gary Teichmann wearing the dunce’s hat and, finally, the gentle leg-stretching canter to the right corner Phew. Irrespective of events over the next two weekends, however, Dawson’s name is back in lights.Rob Howley, everyone’s first-choice scrum-half until his accident during the victory over Natal, could not conceivably have pierced the South African defence with more confidence or more swagger than the shaven-headed Saint displayed as the clock ticked down at Newlands. In reality we must have the same ban in all countries.”Homen also announced that there were three candidates to stage the 2002 European championships: Amsterdam, Lausanne and Munich.

A decision on which city will prevail will be made on 9 October.. His alarmingly severe haircut and haunted expression gives him the appearance of an extra from Dr Zhivago and up until nine days ago, Matt Dawson looked every inch a Lions extra into the bargain That was then. The Northampton scrum-half’s Test-turning try in Cape Town on Saturday not only gave the British Isles a better than even chance of squeezing out a wholly unexpected series victory over the reigning world champions but, almost at a stroke, resurrected an individual career that had virtually imploded in a morass of injury and bitter frustration.
The Lions must still win another Test to transform a wild dream into even wilder reality and with the Springbok mood now as dark as pitch, that objective will be desperately difficult to realise. Carl Olaf Homen, EAA president, said that the decision by the EAA council was unanimous.
“Two years ago in Gothenburg the EAA support was divided [for reducing the ban to two years] but the situation has changed,” he said.”Many countries, owing to their national laws, do not have the possibility to implement a four-year ban. The current length of the ban for serious doping offences is four years, but national laws in several leading athletics nations have prevented the full ban being imposed in several cases.

The European Athletic Association said yesterday that they will back proposals by the International Amateur Athletic Federation to reduce bans for drug offences to two years. “Ben’s the fastest man in the world – a powerhouse, an animal.” A perfect match, some might say.. “I think I have a couple more years left playing top- flight football.”Things have taken a turn for the bizarre in the life of Diego Maradona. The former Argentina captain, twice suspended for drug offences and all but retired from Boca Juniors, has hired Ben Johnson, who was stripped of his 1988 Olympic gold 100 metres medal for taking steroids, as a personal trainer on wages of $1,000 [pounds 625] a day.”I want to be the best in the world again,” Maradona said.