A brass band almost played jazz on the concourse outside the west stand at Emirates Airline Park on Saturday night. They veered towards free-form, dragged themselves back into structure, before some of their number headed off on tangents again. Back and forth until it was almost danceable.
They attracted a small group of fans, who were almost able to dance to their music, but who settled for bouncing up and down, nodding and smiling, trying to find the beat, happy when they did and just as happy when they didn’t.
Sports fans can look a little bewildered when their team has been as good as the Lions were on Saturday, coming down from the furious rush of the adrenaline high. You could almost see the vapour trail of happy juice fumes from some as they floated down Currey Street outside Ellis Park.
They had just witnessed an extraordinary game, a performance by the Lions that prompted Ben Smith, captain of the Highlanders, the defending champions who had been well beaten, to say: “The running rugby they have been playing has been unreal.” When Smith praises a team for their style of play, it is worth listening.
Where to start with what happened on Saturday? The beginning is as good a place as any. The stadium announcer counted down the seconds until the 3pm kick-off. He was excited. Very excited. “Five! Four! Three! Two! One!”
The crowd, over 50 000 of them, went bowel-wobbly with excitement and filled the Doornfontein air with roars. Except that someone had forgotten to prime Jaco Peyper, the referee about the countdown. Peyper looked at his watch.
The fans tired, the roar subsided. Peyper turned to Elton Jantjies and told him he could start at his leisure, which he did with a leisurely kick to Smith. From then, it was a blur of speed, a game Smith said was the fastest he had played in.
There were moments that turned the game this way and that. Smith scythed through the Lions early on, floated a pass left to Patrick Osborne, who tried to step inside Ruan Combrinck, but the Lions’ wing stuck out a mitt and held on to his jersey, flicking him to the ground, where Jaco Kriel nicked the ball.
Jantjies slipped his way through for a try under the posts after 12 phases. Elliot Dixon, wearing what looked like a black bin bag wrapped around his head, dropped the ball when he was over the line for the visitors, chucking it forward in his haste to dot it down. There were 13 minutes left in the first half when that happened. Unlucky for some. Very unlucky for him.
Jantjies was everywhere and everything. His hit on Matt Faddes to provide a loose ball for Rohan Janse van Rensburg’s try. The dummy, step and charge for Courtnall Skosana’s try. His cross-kick to Kriel.
The outside-of-the-foot chip over the Highlanders’ defence for the Lourens Eramus try via Franco Mostert. Man, he even engineered a counter-ruck. His tears in the post-match press conference, when he said he had no words, spoke of the journey he has been on to get to where he is.
The Lions have a chance of making history against the Hurricanes in Wellington on Saturday. They left at 3pm yesterday and will arrive at midnight tonight. They will set out to play against the Canes as they have done so well this season, like the brass band trying to play jazz on Saturday night - from structure to free form and back again.
Rugby was meant to be played this way - fast, hard and beautiful, and it was meant to be marked by the tears of a superstar.
A spot of history
There were sub-stories to this match, quirks of history, degrees of separation. Johan Ackermann had played in two semi-finals for the Cats in 2000 and 2001, a team coached by Laurie Mains.
On Saturday, he picked his son, who was just a baby in 2000, to replace Warren Whiteley - a 46-year old-coach watching his 20-year-old boy. Victor Matfield had been a replacement lock for the Cats in 2000. In 2007,
Ackermann had played for the Sharks against the Bulls in the Super Rugby final in Durban, losing to a Bulls team captained by Matfield. Rudolf Straeuli, now CEO of the Lions, was with the Sharks as commercial manager when Ackermann played for them.
Straeuli came off the bench for the Springboks in the Rugby World Cup final against the All Blacks at Ellis Park in 1995 as an extra-time replacement for Mark Andrews. Jamie Joseph, the coach of the Highlanders, was on the bench for that 1995 All Black team.
Joseph wore number 19 and came on at half time for Mike Brewer, who had been given a working over by the Boks. Mains coached that All Black team. History is a funny old thing.
The Star