Mealamu and Umaga’s slam-dunking of the Lions captain was typical of the game’s wild west years but it proved a watershed – and the hurt still lingers
B
rian O’Driscoll 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 – and people do still want to talk about it.
That moment – in the first minute of the first Test of the Lions series against New Zealand – 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.
It all happened on the edge of shot. You see O’Driscoll 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’Driscoll 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’Driscoll found a camcorder video in his cubby hole at Leinster. It had been shot, and sent on, by an Irish fan who had been in the stands.
