Lions diary, day twenty-four

The calm before the storm was not only to be found on the glassy seas lapping Port Elizabeth's beaches on Wednesday morning.

The calm before the storm was not only to be found on the glassy seas lapping Port Elizabeth's beaches on Wednesday morning.

There has been neither hide nor hair of a Lion on view in Durban as the squad sets about both recovering from Tuesday's bashing at the hands of the Kings and about getting itself together for the first Test on Saturday. Even the fans have been scarce with many taking Wednesday off in recovery from Tuesday's excesses.

That was quite some Tuesday in Port Elizabeth: as well as the build-up to the barbecue sauce bottle incident mentioned in yesterday's dispatch, it has also come to our attention that the Lions fans, indomitable to the last, managed to drink two of PE's bars completely dry! A flag planted there I feel.

The media did not get so lucky. As you may recall, the incompetence of the airline to get its flight in the air on time, coupled with the alarming lack of taxis in PE, meant I was unable to make it to the game itself, leading to an unnerving case of what my better half terms FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out

Encounters with a pallid, world-weary and distressed looking set of colleagues at PE airport suggested I might indeed have missed out on the mother of all pre-Test parties, but subsequent enquiries revealed that most had been damaging the doulton all night after consuming hospitality food laid on at the stadium that one Irish journalist described to me as 'semi-heated offal'.

Coupled with the injuries to James Hook and Euan Murray, it appears that the leg of the tour that stopped in the Friendly City has been little but unfriendly to the business half of the touring party.

Someone this tour has been friendly to is Tommy Bowe. The Irishman has built up a cult following of female fans somewhere akin to the horde that used to chase the legendary Tony O'Reilly around, while scribes from both camps are voting left, right and centre for him as player of the tournament thus far.

But surely the greatest accolade than can be bestowed on a player has also come his way: he is the only player to have had songs made up around his name.

So far we have had: “Tommy….Tommy Bo-ooooowwwweee, Tommy… Tommy Bo-oooowwwweee” (to the tune of 'Daddy Cool'), and “We all build our team on Tommy Bowe, our team on Tommy Bowe, our team on Tommy Bowe” (to the tune of 'Yellow Submarine'), both of which could be heard ringing out from establishments in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday night.

What we wonder is: was that before the beer ran out, or after?

Finally, I bring bad news for those of you hoping for some more classic clangers by Peter de Villiers: the South African coach is not scheduled to be at a single SA team press conference this week. Again, we wonder: what will he do if they lose?

Journal kept by Richard Anderson