Sport can bring the worst out of you. It's the pressure

TV VIEW:WE THOUGHT of the North Korean goalkeeper on Saturday as Morne Steyn was readying himself to take that last-minute kick.

“When I was keeping goal,” said Ri Myong Guk, at the conclusion of a successful World Cup qualifying campaign last week, “I felt like I was defending the gateway to my motherland.”

That kind of thinking, of course, can put an awful lot of pressure on a fella, pressure we sincerely hoped Steyn was feeling, in spades, as he shaped up to embezzle victory for South Africa in the second Test.

It’s a regrettable attitude, need it be said, but sport can bring the worst out in you. Just ask Schalk “Gouger” Burger. When the home crowd tried to put Stephen Jones off his kicking throughout the game we were appalled.

When Steyn stepped up we wanted Paul O’Connell to strip naked and do the Macarena in his line of vision, in the hope that it might rattle his concentration. Which, you’d imagine, it would have done.

O’Connell, though, remained fully clothed while Steyn stripped Sky Sports – and the Lions – of any hope of the third Test being more than a deceased rubber.

The Sky panel had bordered on the ecstatic at half-time, with Simon Lazenby declaring the first 40 minutes to have been “the best half of rugby any of us has seen for years, it’s been spectacular”.

That might well have been true. But Simon then came perilously close to spraying Paul Wallace, Ieuan Evans and Will Greenwood with champagne when there was still 40 whole minutes to go.

In terms of asking for trouble it was on a par with Brian O’Driscoll, after an early dust-up in the game, mouthing “bring it on” to a Springbok the size of Kilimanjaro. Stuart Barnes, in the Sky commentary box, applauded O’Driscoll’s spirit, but it struck us as a request fraught with danger, as the many mangled Lions who later had to leave the pitch would attest.

“Can the Lions keep it up,” beamed Simon, a beam that half-suggested his thoughts were already half-focused on the “series-decider” in Johannesburg.

Not to be. Forty minutes later Simon was crestfallen, and didn’t even have the heart to try to convince us the third Test would be the biggest in rugby history because there would be more pride at stake than in any sporting event since events first became sporty.

Sometimes you just have to call it for what it is. A dampish squib.

Although, it should be said, there’s no harm in retaining a smidgeon of enthusiasm. Take Robert Hall at the Curragh yesterday. Sea The Stars, the favourite, had withdrawn from the Irish Derby, but Robert was still intent on being excited about the occasion.

Ted Walsh?

“Ah, it’s a flat auld race now without Sea The Stars. It’s a bit like Federer not playing at Wimbledon, it makes a right hames of it. But we’ll have to put up with what we have.”

You sensed Robert wanted to smack Ted, but he’s no Schalk Burger – if he was, Ted would have been picking his teeth up off the parade-ring floor.

If Morne Steyn was under a bit of pressure when he prepared to take that kick, it’s nothing compared to what Andy Murray is enduring this weather. If he wins Wimbledon the British lionheart will be the toast of the kingdom; if he doesn’t, the Scottish ne’er-do-well flop will get more negative headlines than Harold Shipman.

Ben Bradshaw, a man with one of the lengthier titles in British public life – Secretary of State for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – turned up on Adam Boulton’s Sunday morning show on Sky News yesterday and appealed to that nation not to put too much pressure on Andy.

“I think we’ve probably got the best chance of a title this year than at any time since I went and saw Virginia Wade in 1997, having slept on the pavement all night,” he said. (Note: we’re giving Ben the benefit of the doubt here, we’re assuming he meant 1977. Because if he slept on a Wimbledon pavement all night in 1997 in the hope of catching a glimpse of Virginia the next morning, as she made her way to the BBC commentary booth, then the police should probably be informed.)

“At the same time, let’s not put too much pressure on the guy, there are always huge expectations for British players,” he continued, before adding, one more time, “he’s our best hope for many, many years.”

But all Andy has to do to is display the nerve of Morne Steyn, the pride of Ri Myong Guk and the ruthlessness of Ted Walsh and he’ll be home and hosed.

What he needs to avoid doing, if the pair end up meeting, is looking Roger Federer in the eye and saying “bring it on”.

Because if he’s not careful, he might.