2 Different Final Hurrahs in Australia vs. Lions Rugby Match

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/sports/rugby/06iht-rugby06.html

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SYDNEY — The coaches of Australia and the British and Irish Lions rolled the selection dice before the series-deciding match between the two teams here Saturday, with starkly different results for Australia flanker George Smith and Lions center Brian O’Driscoll.

While Australia coach Robbie Deans has given Smith the chance to write his own fairytale ending to an impressive 13-year career by bringing him onto the Australian team for the finale at ANZ Stadium, Lions coach Warren Gatland has not afforded O’Driscoll the same opportunity. Now the veteran Irishman will be relying on his teammates to deliver a series victory for which he has been waiting 12 years and four Lions’ tours.

Smith, who came out of international retirement for the series, will become the first Australian player to take part in consecutive Lions series after being part of the winning Australia side in 2001.

Following his original decision to retire from international rugby in 2009, the openside flanker played in France and Japan, where he will return after this series, but he could not resist the call to return to the Wallabies for one final hurrah.

Smith, who turns 33 next week, seems almost certain his 111th test Saturday will be his last. “I’ve had a fantastic international career, and knowing when to bow out and the legacy that I’ve left behind on the international stage I’m very proud of,” he said to reporters. “This just caps it off.

“To play away from home with not too many friends and family there watching, this gives me the opportunity to play in front of them and also play in front of the Australian crowd and on home soil.

“That will be fitting for my career to look back on and say I’ve finished on a great occasion, a big moment,” he said. “I’m looking forward to that.”

The moments don’t get much bigger than playing in front of a sellout crowd of more than 80,000 against a team that visits Australia only once every 12 years.

“This doesn’t come around again. At the final whistle it’s archived,” said Deans, whose future in the job remained far from assured before the biggest rugby game in Australia since the 2003 Rugby World Cup final.

“You’ve heard the players talk about the importance to them, just the scarce nature of the Lions,” he said at a news conference. “You’ve heard of players who have experienced it in the past and come up short and how it lingers with them.”

One person who won’t get the send-off he hoped for is O’Driscoll, the only other player in this series to have played in the 2001 campaign.

He was part of a losing Lions team then, as he was in 2005 against New Zealand and in 2009 against South Africa.

The 34-year-old could never have imagined that this would be how his Lions career would end. In 14 years of playing rugby, O’Driscoll has never before been dropped by a coach.

The outrage at the axing of a player described by Lions tour manager Andy Irvine as “one of the greatest players on the planet for the last 20-30 years” has been fierce and widespread.

If Deans has gambled in bringing Smith back into the fold after more than three years away from international rugby — and a six-week layoff with a knee injury — it is nothing compared with the decision by Gatland to deny O’Driscoll his Lions swan song.

O’Driscoll has played in 133 tests for both Ireland and the Lions and is revered by teammates and opponents alike. He has a great ability to calm and inspire a team in times of need — qualities that will be vital in the heat of battle in a series so tight that both tests so far have been decided by missed kicks at the end.

The Lions are already without their captain, Sam Warburton, and the vastly experienced Paul O’Connell, who is also out with injury. But the decision to cut O’Driscoll is one Gatland said he had made with his head and not his heart.

“We can agonize all we want about the merits, the rights and wrongs, but ultimately if the Lions win, the decision was justified,” Gavin Hastings, who was fullback in the 1989 series-winning Lions team in Australia, said in an interview while at a charity lunch for the Shake it Up Australia Foundation in Sydney on Thursday.

O’Driscoll has not been the attacking force he once was on this tour, but he has been excellent on defense and tied for top tackler for the Lions, with 14, in the second test loss.

Jamie Roberts, who comes into the midfield after recovering from a hamstring injury, does not have the attacking guile of O’Driscoll. He is a big, powerful hard-running center, and strength and size have been Gatland’s preference in a team selected to overpower the Wallabies, who will look to counter that with the expansive, attacking game that eventually brought them victory last weekend.

That is evident in the selection of No.8 Toby Faletau, hooker Richard Hibbard and scrum-half Mike Phillips — three of a record 10 Welshmen in the Lions starting 15.

Australia No.9 Will Genia won man of the match in Melbourne and is one of several attacking threats, including the impressive Israel Folau, whom the Lions must close down if they are to claim a first series win since South Africa in 1997.

“Mike Phillips needs to keep Genia under control,” Hastings said. “I think whoever comes out on top between those two could well determine the outcome of the match. I think it’s a crucial battle.”