Loose Pass

This week we will be mostly concerning ourselves with wildcard Lions, brawling and costume malfunctions…

Welcome to Loose Pass – our weekly assortment of musings, mutterings, tickled fancies and disjointed thoughts. This week we will be mostly concerning ourselves with wildcard Lions, brawling and costume malfunctions…

So the hunt for Lions is almost out of the public's hand. Although we enjoy the pub debates and the various selectorial features available on the web (with ours being the original and the best!) it has dawned on us that the real Lions selectors might take a different view on matters.

The tourists won't win the Test series with so-called 'form players'. Match up the last Bok XV to have taken to the field (the one that walloped England in November) with our readers' current Lions XV selection, and we'd venture that even the most fervent red-clad fan would concede that South Africans edge their opposite men in all but, arguably, two positions.

15: Lee Byrne, Conrad Jantjes
14: Tommy Bowe, JP Pietersen
13: Brian O'Driscoll, Adrian Jacobs
12: Riki Flutey, Jean de Villiers
11: Mark Cueto, Bryan Habana
10: Ronan O'Gara, Ruan Pienaar
9: Mike Blair, Ricky Januarie
8: Jamie Heaslip, Pierre Spies
7: David Wallace, Schalk Burger
6: Tom Croft, Danie Rossouw
5: Alun-Wyn Jones, Victor Matfield
4: Paul O'Connell, Bakkies Botha
3: Euan Murray, Jannie du Plessis
2: Lee Mears, John Smit
1: Andrew Sheridan, Tendai Mtawarira

The tourists will need to out-fox the locals with inventive rugby. They need players with the x-factor and in Ian McGeechan they have a man who has been known to pull the occassional rabbit from his hat.

Remember 1997? South Africa didn't really know what to make of the likes of John Bentley, Alan Tait and Jeremy Davidson, and by the time they had worked it out it was too late.

Matt Dawson was a curious choice at scrum-half, but he answered his critics with the dummy-and-go of the century.

And Martin Johnson as captain? What was Geech thinking?

And what's with the two tiny props? Won't they get eaten up by the giant Bok forwards? And who on earth is Will Greenwood? A lanky northerner with zero caps to his name…

So prepare yourselves for a few surprises when Geech reveals his hand on April 21. Why fight fire with fire when water has long been the more successful option?

Tickets will go to the inspired and daring, so step forward the likes of James Hook, Danny Cipriani, Keith Earls, Danny Care and Ben Foden. The Evans brothers could also do some damage on the hard ground – as could Leigh Halfpenny, Peter Richards, Topsy Ojo and Shane Geraghty.

Nick Kennedy, not dissimilar from Jeremy Davidson, deserves a crack at the world's best line-out exponents, and why not pick a couple of uncapped youngsters? Ryan Lamb would relish the chance to skip down the path last trod by Greenwood, and what would little Bryan Habana make of mighty Matt Banahan? Loose Pass looks forward to finding out.

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Incidentally, there are just four Lions from the class of 1997 who are still earning a crust by hitting rucks.

Tom Smith is one, as several Scottish readers reminded us last week after a hideous oversight (thank you!), and Mark Regan and Mike Catt still lace the occasional boot – but can you name number four? Amazingly, he's practically a sure bet to be selected for a second Lions tour of South Africa.

Answers on a postcard, please!

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It might surprise you that a man gave up the chance of representing his country at Rugby World Cup 2007 because he could not be drawn from his farm during lambing season.

We'd wager it will surprise you to know that the man who chose to gambol in the spring meadows went by the name Julian White. Yep, the same Julian White who earned a red card for landing a haymaker on Andrew Sheridan during the recent encounter between Leicester and Sale.

Okay, Big Ted lashed out first, and a pop from a prop labelled 'rugby's strongest man' would sting a wee bit, but surely White's latest brush with the law confirms without doubt that he boasts rugby's shortest fuse.

We're talking modern times, of course. Historically, how can we look past Federico Méndez for this little bout of unprovoked red mist?

Paul Ackford, the lock on the receiving end of the Argentinian's fist, is still unable to shake the nickname he picked up that day on account of those wobbly legs: Bambi.

What fun it would be to see White and Méndez on opposite sides of the same pitch. Where's Don King when you need him?

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Rather less innocent than Ackford was his long-time partner in England's engine room – Wade Dooley.

The Blackpool Tower wasn't afraid to lay down the law, he was a policeman after all … but his grip on what was actually legal was a little shaky, to say the very least.

Dooley features in so many of those colourful tales from the days before pesky video referees and citing officials. Our favourite is the one as retold by the equally rambunctious Brian Moore.

England were on tour in Australia and preparing to face Queensland. Dooley was asked by the coaches what he knew about his direct opponent – a young lock named John Eales who was about to make his first representative appearance.

Dooley replied: “He's an arts student.” As he proffered nothing further he was asked by the forwards coach: “Is that it?” to which he replied: “It's all I need to know.”

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Marriott has opened a 156-room full service hotel at Twickenham. It is integrated within the stadium and has six suites with direct views of the pitch. This means you can watch England play whilst lying in bed.

Is it a coincidence that the advent of horizontal spectating follows hot on the heels of the resurrection of the rolling maul and up-the-jumper rugby? We think not. Fetch me a pillow, I'm off to watch England at HQ…