Prior to the 1^st test in Durban they have six warm up games against various opposition who will no cause various injury problems for the tests, some accidental & some not. They have already won the first warm up game against a Royal XV winning by 37 to 25. All this will hopefully mean that by the time the lions play the first test then they will be ready & used to playing as a team. Let’s hope so because I can see the lads losing 3-0.

South Africa are a class side and at present are ranked 2^nd in the world behind New Zealand. They are & have always been a very physical side. This is something the Lions are going to have to deal with as well as some dubious refereeing decisions. To me South Africa bend the rules, an example being the New Zealand team coming down with food poisoning the day before the 1995 world cup final. I won’t even mention the disallowed try by the referee against France in the semi, that had it being correctly given they would have won. There is also the try England had disallowed in the 2007 final. I could go on but you get the picture.

The last time the Lions played in South Africa they came back with a two one test series victory (1997). South Africa were a different beast then. They were reorganising after their 1995 world cup victory & were on a bad run. The turning point in their recent history to me was the 53-3 defeat to England at Twickenham. This was a record defeat for the Springboks against anybody let alone England. After this record defeat they slowly started to improve and despite some hiccups on the way including losing to England in the 2003 world cup Quarter finals they became world number one with their second world cup victory in 2007.

The Lions are coached by Scotsman Ian McGeechan. This will be the forth time that he has coached the side. The first time he coached was in 1989 when the lions came back from losing the first test to Australia to take the series 2-1. This was the series in which David Campese dropped the ball and allowed the lions to win one of the games. Ha,ha,ha. Could not have happened to a nicer bloke. In 1993 the lions lost to New Zealand 2-1 in a close series & then in 1997 won the already mentioned series in South Africa 2-1. So a good record for McGeechan but I feel the game has moved on in the ten or more years since he coached. He has his critics for playing dour rugby & to be fair it is not hard to disagree but despite this his record is good.

Under Captain Paul O’Connell the lions have a very difficult task ahead & to be honest I can’t see them winning a single test. This won’t be because of any lack of effort on the players part. The northern hemisphere has again fallen behind the south & to be honest you could argue that it has never really overtaken or equalled their counterparts from the south. Only England in the last ten years as well as the odd French victory, have given the Northern hemisphere any reason to suppose that the dominance of their Southern counterparts (2003 excepted) was to be challenged. If only.

Bad Luck lads.

Douglas Martin

Williamhill.com ~ £25 Free bet use Promo code: F25

Popular searches: rugby betting, british lions tour of south africa 2009, bet lion, bet on rugby, betting on rugby, british lions rugby, british lions tour, british lions tours, lions betting, online rugby betting, rugby bet, rugby bets, rugby picks, rugby prediction