Lions Tour/Otago - 19 The Lions - 30: This game has been, can be and most probably forever will be, summed up in two words: Ryan Jones. The 24-year-old only arrived in New Zealand eight days previously, but he breezed into the Lions tour like a breath of fresh air and not so much stole the show in Carisbrook on Saturday as mugged everybody in sight and made off with the man-of-the-match champers.
He's built like a freight train and just as unstoppable. Either way Jones's all-purposeful, all-action display could yet be the spark that ignited the 2005 Lions, a bit like John Bentley's try against Transvaal in South Africa eight years ago. It's tries like that, or performances like this one by Jones, that bring tours to life.
Taking high balls, leading the tourists' tackle count, making big bearhugging, turnover tackles, Jones then went about winning the match almost single-handedly by first scoring with a superb attacking line, off that collector's item a Shane Williams pass, and then made the hard yards in the build-up to some slick handling by the backs and a trademark finish by Williams.
Watching him cut a swathe through Otago in the manner he did, one half expected a head-banging, raw-steak-eating mongrel to appear in the media room afterwards. But then you remembered the grinning, long-haired fellow shifting along the tarmac on arrival in Dunedin and doing a jig to the welcoming Irish music.
Sure enough, he lollops in with a slice of pizza in his hand and holds court, moving effortlessly from one question to the next with a refreshingly easygoing, candid manner. The young man is in dreamland. His father, Stephen, had flown over on Thursday and had called in to the team hotel the night before the game telling him to "have no regrets" about this "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity".
Sometimes being young, fearless and self-confident can be just as effective as experience. Nothing typified this better than the way he simply backed himself to take that 69th-minute tap penalty and open up the whole pitch in the build-up to Shane Williams's try by beating two tackles.
A year ago he had actually been one of those players cast adrift by the dismantling of the Celtic Warriors, and admitted that "my goal for the year was to get a club". Nonetheless, he was always one of their most prized assets and it was always a question of which other Welsh region would snap him up.
A replacement debutant in the autumn against the All Blacks, he was brought in to face Italy midway through the Six Nations as a horses-for-courses selection by Mike Ruddock, who felt Wales needed some bulk for that fixture, but kept his place and also shone in the wins over Scotland and Ireland.
The laid-back Jones couldn't even say he was disappointed to be omitted from the original Lions squad. "I only started my Test career in November. So I have won a Grand Slam with Wales and to be a Welshman and done that and to see the effect it had on people, I wouldn't have called it a bad season if it ended there. It just keeps on going on and on, it's been a whirlwind, I've had no opportunity to sit back and appreciate everything that has happened."
Continuing this theme, Jones admitted that travelling over from Canada and thinking about what was ahead of him was quite daunting. "I was sitting on the plane coming over, thinking these are players I have been brought up watching, admiring, fearing, world-class players. It's only when I got here that I realise they really are normal guys, it's just the guys you play week-in, week-out with, just a different environment, they've been great, which has been a big help to me. They've got me through this week. There have been sheets and sheets of lineouts and moves and things like that. They've gone out of their way to help me."
He said he was disappointed to go off, while it was just as disappointing that his departure didn't herald a huge ovation other than the response of the replacements' bench. Made you wonder.
The embroidered match jersey he'll keep, the champagne can go to his dad. Getting off the plane, getting the gear was grand, but only after this barnstorming debut does he truly feel he's a Lion.
"It is only now I have shared the experiences they have. I have shed tears and blood and sweat and now I really am one of them. I can look around the changing room and know I have put something into the tour."
A ripple effect of Jones's dynamic display is that he jumped ahead of Simon Easterby in the pecking order despite another intelligent and sharp all-round performance by the latter. Indeed, as a parochial aside, this wasn't the best of nights for the Irish contingent. Gordon D'Arcy appeared to play under too much pressure, trying too hard, and nothing came off for him.
Geordan Murphy was going well - and thrice team-mates were guilty of not offloading to him when he'd taken typically good lines - until losing one high ball and then making two even more uncharacteristic handling errors. He regrouped, but they were unfortunate as well as uncharacteristic lapses.
Denis Hickie blighted his performance by missing one high-profile tackle, while Donncha O'Callaghan, typically, made more clear-outs at rucks (17) than any other player but you sense his industry is being overlooked a little. Ronan O'Gara, while pushing one eminently kickable penalty wide, again looked as good as any of the outhalves with his distribution on the gainline and showed real vision with a couple of attacking kicks.
Curiously, for the third time in their four wins, the Lions were level at half-time, before pulling clear.
Otago, with Nick Evans an impressive running outhalf and Neil Brew a big-hitting dangerman in midfield, threatened to repeat history before the Lions pack cranked it up.
But for a tendency to again overrun passes, not move the ball on or spill the pill, they'd have pulled clear sooner. As expected, their scrum became a key weapon against a frontrow missing Anton Oliver and Carl Hayman, and including Craig Dunlea, released by the Borders last season. They had already turned the screw with a big scrum on an Otago put-in prior to Jones's try when they cranked up the scrum and mauling some more by unloading three cuts of prime English beef, Steve Thompson, the destructive Andy Sheridan and Danny Grewcock.
At which point the Otago pack may as well have hailed a taxi.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 6 mins: Evans pen 3-0; 15: Evans pen 6-0; 17: Hodgson pen 6-3; 24: Hodgson pen 6-6; 33: Lee try, Evans con 13-6; 40: Greenwood try, Hodgson con 13-13; Half-time: 13-13; 44: Evans pen 16-13; 53: Jones try, Hodgson con 16-20; 62: Evans pen 19-20; 65: Hodgson pen 19-23; 69: S Williams try, Hodgson con 19-30.
OTAGO: G Horton; H Pedersen, N Brew, S Mapusua, M Saunders; N Evans, D Lee; C Hoeft, J Macdonald, C Dunlea, F Levi, T Donnelly, C Newby (capt), J Blackie, G Webb. Replacements: J Shoemark for Brew (48 mins), J Aldworth for Dunlea (54 mins), J Vercoe for MacDonald (62 mins), C Smylie for Lee (75 mins), A Soakai for Blackie (77 mins).
LIONS: G Murphy (Leicester Tigers, Ireland); D Hickie (Leinster, Ireland), W Greenwood (NEC Harlequins, England), G D'Arcy (Leinster, Ireland), S Williams (Ospreys, Wales); C Hodgson (Sale Sharks, England), C Cusiter (Borders, Scotland); G Rowntree (Leicester Tigers, England), G Bulloch (Glasgow, Scotland, capt), M Stevens (Bath, England), S Shaw (London Wasps, England), D O'Callaghan (Munster, Ireland), S Easterby (Llanelli Scarlets, Ireland), M Williams (Cardiff Blues, Wales), R Jones (Ospreys, Wales). Replacements: O Smith (Leicester Tigers, England) for D'Arcy (54 mins), S Thompson (Northampton Saints, England) for Bulloch, A Sheridan (Sale Sharks, England) for Rowntree, D Grewcock (Bath, England) for Shaw, M Dawson (London Wasps, England) for Cusiter (all 62 mins), R O'Gara (Munster, Ireland) for Hodgson (70 mins), M Owen (Dragons, Wales) for Jones (77 mins).
Referee: Lyndon Bray (New Zealand).
