Brian O\u2019Driscoll is sick of talking about it. Tana Umaga says anyone still asking needs to put it behind them. But here we are, 20 years to the day since the tackle that ties them together \u2013 and people do still want to talk about it.<\/p>\n
That moment \u2013 in the first minute of the first Test of the Lions series against New Zealand \u2013 still pops up on TikTok and YouTube feeds, still sparks arguments on Reddit threads, still leads hour-long podcasts when players reminisce about how they saw it. And it still inspires articles like this one, long after the men involved have made up and moved on.<\/p>\n
It all happened on the edge of shot. You see O\u2019Driscoll throw himself into a ruck, then play moves on one phase; the camera follows Richie McCaw as he carries the ball into contact and by the time O\u2019Driscoll reappears he is face down on the ground, rolling around in agony. Exactly what went on in the few seconds in between would not become clear for a few months, when O\u2019Driscoll found a camcorder video<\/a> in his cubby hole at Leinster. It had been shot, and sent on, by an Irish fan who had been in the stands.<\/p>\n By then, rugby was already working on redrafting the laws around the contact area, the reputations of both teams had taken a beating and O\u2019Driscoll was dealing with the aftermath of an injury that meant he would never be quite the same player again.<\/p>\n But that is beginning with the ending. To understand why the tackle blew up the way it did, you have to put it in the context of everything around it. The 2005 Lions tour was one of the most eagerly anticipated in history. Between them, the four home nations had beaten the All Blacks in New Zealand twice in 100 years of trying. Combined as the Lions, they had won a solitary series out of 10, in 1971.<\/p>\n TV stills presented by Lions coach Clive Woodward to back his claim that Keven Mealamu and Tana Umaga spear-tackled Brian O\u2019Driscoll. Photograph: AP<\/p>\n In 2005, Ireland were still waiting for their first victory against them, home or away (whisper it, but 20 years later, Scotland are waiting still). A New Zealand tour might be the hardest task in the sport today, but back then there was no doubt about it.<\/p>\n This one was supposed to be different, however. For the first time, one of the four home nations had won the World Cup and the man who had coached them, Clive Woodward, was leading the Lions. Neither of which, as it turned out, would do them any good.<\/p>\n For one thing, the game had changed so much in the two years since the World Cup that the England squad, who had been flogged into playing for their clubs the week after their victory, had started to fall apart. They had been overtaken by Ireland, who had finished above them in the Six Nations both years, and Wales, who had just won a grand slam. Woodward, in what felt like a midlife crisis, had quit rugby and gone into football with Southampton<\/a>.<\/p>\n His imaginative approach to coaching had been exactly what a gnarly England team needed. His relationship with the older players meant they felt able to cherrypick the best of it and reject everything else. But the Lions did not know any better and the tour was launched with plastic wristbands branded with the slogan Woodward had commissioned, personalised iPods loaded with a selection of his favourite motivational music and sheet music with the words and score of the anthem he had written for the tour.<\/p>\n Keen to deal with every last detail, Woodward consulted a M\u0101ori elder about how his team ought to meet the haka, which was how his captain, O\u2019Driscoll, ended up kneeling down and yanking up a fistful of grass from the pitch to throw at the All Blacks before the start of the match. There must have been M\u0101ori scholars watching who understood the significance of the gesture, but everyone else was baffled and the All Blacks they were playing against looked genuinely enraged.<\/p>\n O\u2019Driscoll\u2019s pre-game speech had been about how he wanted every player to win his battle with the man opposite him (\u201cI know one thing,\u201d he said, \u201cTana Umaga is not going to have the upper hand on me\u201d). In their very first contact on the pitch, O\u2019Driscoll went into that ruck, Keven Mealamu grabbed him around one leg, Umaga took the other, and the two of them tipped him up like a bottle of ketchup and dropped him down on the ground.<\/p>\n O\u2019Driscoll stretched out his right arm to break the fall and reduce the risk of a broken neck but ended up dislocating his shoulder instead. He knew straight away that his tour was over<\/a>.<\/p>\n On one wing, Gareth Thomas set off chasing the linesman \u201cwho had walked on to the pitch during the preceding passage of play and simply ordered the pair to: \u2018Leave him alone.\u2019 I screamed at him to get involved, but there was panic in his eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n The referee, Jo\u00ebl Jutge, missed it too, so neither Mealamu nor Umaga were punished for it during the match. Years later, Jutge would admit he had got the decision wrong.<\/p>\n It is harder to understand how the citing commissioner, Willem Venter, decided that there was nothing to see. Two minutes into the biggest Test they had played since 1997, the Lions had lost their captain. They played dismally without him and ended up losing 21-3<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lions fan Julie Richards holds up a banner in protest against Tana Umaga at an open training session in Wellington. Photograph: Mark Baker\/AP<\/p>\n As much pain as he was in, O\u2019Driscoll noticed that, unlike his All Black teammate Justin Marshall, Umaga did not approach to ask after him as he left the field for treatment. Which annoyed him because it felt like an insult on top of an injury.<\/p>\n Umaga won an award for his sportsmanship when he gave first aid to Wales\u2019s Colin Charvis in a Test a couple of years earlier, but on this occasion he was preoccupied with leading his team. Umaga was almost as standoffish after the game. \u201cIt\u2019s too late for explanations now,\u201d he said a few days later. \u201cI could try to explain it but what would that achieve?\u201d<\/p>\n