PART TWO OF our interview with former Lions captain Willie John McBride:
McBride is synonymous with instilling a fighting spirit into his side and transforming the British and Irish Lions from plucky tourists to bloodied and unbowed victors.
The ’99 call’ he instigated on his final tour to South Africa saw every Lion pitch into battle with the opposition if one player was rough-housed. McBride, at his brusque best, told TheScore.ie, “The ‘Boks were silly. They took us on and they lost.”
McBride and Ireland were Five Nations champions in 1974 and there was a green flavour to proceedings for the subsequent Lions tour to South Africa. Syd Millar was coach and McBride received the ultimate honour of being named captain of what he describes as ‘a remarkable bunch of men’.
He says, “There was such a variety on that tour. If you can imagine that; guys, from the steelworks, coalmines, banks, office jobs, from all walks of life coming together for a common cause. I learned a hell of a lot about people, and a hell of a lot about myself, on that tour.
From the moment we arrived, there was no-one from this country or that. That’s the only way to do it; 30 men sticking together through the good times and the bad.”
Edward Heath, Fiji the lion cub and McBride in ’74. (PA Archive)
The good times certainly outweighed the bad as the Lions swept all-comers aside. The toughest game of the team’s 22-match unbeaten tour did not come in a Test Match, the lock insists, but against Orange Free State. “We only won that game in the last seconds but their true purpose was to soften us up,” revealed McBride.
“In the past, when the Lions had travelled to South Africa, rugby was seen as a gentleman’s game and we were often seen as a soft touch. You get the rough treatment from one or two of their so-called hard me.” McBride added, “That had all changed by ’74. We were going to start handing it back.”
“The ’99′ call was my idea,” he added. “We were coming up against Eastern Province the week before the First Test and I was tipped off that some of their players would take one of our key guys out. I had a words about it with the guys beforehand and, basically, said ‘Right, if one of us are in it, we’re all in it’. We stand together.” He explains the mentality of that infamous Lions team:
You must win, at all costs – that’s what drove us. You can still be a good loser in sport but with the Lions we never entertained the thought. The forwards on the ’74 tour were guys like Gordon Brown, Fran Cotton and Fergus Slattery. You don’t mess around with guys like that.”
A 12-3 win in the First Test was eclipsed with comprehensive victories in the Second and Third Tests, with Brown, Phil Bennett and JJ Williams the chief tormentors. The Lions trailed 13-10 before Andy Irvine levelled the Fourth Test. A 4-0 series win was denied when Slattery looked to have a definite try chalked off as referee Max Baise ruled that it had not been grounded.
Looking back on that tour, some 39 years on, McBride says the fact that the team went three and a half months unbeaten more than makes up for falling short of the whitewash. He played on internationally for a further year and, fittingly, scored his first Ireland try in his final home game, against France, at Lansdowne Road.
“I kept that trick up my sleeve until the last,” remarked the Ireland and Lions legend.
