The Invincibles

A tour by the British and Irish Lions is obviously highly anticipated and a great marketing tool so, as well as replica jerseys and other apparel, there are tie-in DVD releases.  Along with The Lions' Roar of '74 from Duke Video, The Invincibles: 1974 British and Irish Lions Tour of South Africa has been released by Digital Classics. Made by West Park Pictures for Sky Sports, this set consists of two programmes of 47 minutes each and was broadcast on Sky Sports in one hour slots in May 2009 just before the 2009 tour to South Africa commenced.
 
The British and Irish Lions are one of the most enduring of all sporting teams. Like the Barbarians, they are a invitational side, who are chosen from the best rugby players in the four home nations every three or four years to tour Australia, New Zealand and South Africa on a rotational basis. After the 1971 tour to New Zealand, where they lost only one match and took the four match series 2-1-1, they re-assembled three years later under the captaincy of the Irish lock Willie-John McBride, making his fifth tour - a record that still stands.
 

 
Under the cloud of apartheid and amidst protests, the thirty-strong touring side (including team doctor Ken Kennedy and assistant doctor JPR Williams, who both also played) set out on the three month tour in May 1974. What happened has gone down in rugby folklore as the greatest tour by probably the greatest Lions team ever, going 22 games unbeaten, earning the nickname 'The Invincibles'. As the Springboks were (and still are) renowned for their physicality, the Lions decided not to take a backward step and, though the origins vary, the famous '99' call was created.  As one version goes, in a game that was becoming increasingly heated and with the South African referee (all the officials were from the host country) reluctant to take action, McBride told him that, if he wouldn't take action, they would. He then told his players that, if they heard him shout '99', they were to punch the nearest Springbok, making it impossible for the referee to single out any individual and show the South Africans that they would not be intimidated.
 
The first part takes you through the build-up to the tour and the first seven provincial games, ending with the first test and the second part from the second test to the Lions' return home. In these programmes, you hear from the players from both sides and people who were there such as the South African Minister for Sport, Makhenkesi Stofile, the current South African coach, Pieter de Villiers and Max Baise, who refereed the final test as well as Peter Hain MP who led the anti-apartheid movement in Britain. Amongst the Lions interviewed are McBride, Uttley, Slattery, JJ and JPR Williams, Fran Cotton, Gareth Edwards and Phil Bennett. Representing the South African players are men such as Hannes Marais, Peter Whipp and Ian McCallum.
 

 
At the time of writing, the Lions are one down in the series and tied their last provincial game, coincidentally by the same score as that infamous fourth test in 1974! Sky Sports have done a fine job with covering the tour and the addition of documentaries like Living with Lions and this build anticipation. This DVD may have come out during the tour but it doesn't matter as it's not essential to watch it before the 2009 Lions series. It is timeless footage of some of the greatest rugby ever played - some would argue that it's the greatest - with superbly physical scrums and highly ambitious back play; you learn that the backs weren't coached and were encouraged to play what was in front of them.
 
The interviews with the Lions - The Invincibles - is the sort of stuff you've heard before, either in other interviews or on other programmes, but you do get extraordinary moments of candour such as when Roger Uttley admits that he knew at the time that he hadn't scored in the final test. The most revealing and worthwhile footage comes from the South African side where you get a real sense of the pressures that they were under and the interview with Max Baise, in which he has tears in his eyes, is extremely emotional. As the saying goes, to the victor goes the spoils, and it's all well and good revelling in the great rugby and fantastic achievement by the thirty men who left the British Isles in 1974 but it's quite something else to get a sense of the flip side and what it meant to be beaten at home for the first time and the reaction by the rugby authorities to something that they didn't expect and to which they reacted very badly.
 

 
This set doesn't have quite so much of the 'old boys club' atmosphere of The Lions Roar of '74 DVD, itself a very good set that was hugely enjoyable, but The Invincibles is a much deeper look at the tour and the cloud under which it left. I didn't realise it was a renegade tour that the government had not sanctioned. It was interesting hearing from Peter Hain that his views haven't changed or softened in the last 35 years and he still thinks that the tour legitimised a horrendous regime just as Willie-John McBride is equally staunch that they were there to play rugby which is separate from politics (in my opinion it's not and he's wrong - John Taylor was right to refuse to go on moral grounds, despite the terrible cost to his career.  There's a nice interview with him at the beginning.) but he maybe has a point that to beat them is to dent the political will. If that was the case, it's a good job the Lions returned unbeaten as a series victory for the Springboks would have reinforced the racial segregation enacted by John Vorster's government.

The Disc

 
Visuals
I was very sceptical of what I was going to see, given that it came on two DVD-Rs  and includes footage that is 35 years old. I needn't have worried as it looks very good with a pleasing lack of moiré on the men's clothes, though there is a little on Ian McGeechan's 2009 Lions T-shirt. The game footage is excellent and of a higher quality than on the Lions' Roar of '74 DVD.
 
There is also more game footage that the Duke release and you get to see the horrendous 'tackle' by a Protea that ended Alan Old's tour. Additionally, the programmes include the home movies shot by the players and members of the tour party (the Lions relaxing with beers, on safari in a jeep and so on) plus some archive footage from South African television.  There are also photographs including one of Roger Uttley's try that wasn't in the final test and you can quite clearly see a Springbok laid on top of the ball.
 

 
Audio
A pleasing and clear DD 2.0 stereo soundtrack, just as when it was broadcast, so there are no problems making out what people are saying; most of the Lions are intelligent and articulate men and the South Africans are surprisingly easy to understand with muted Afrikaan accents being the order of the day.
 
Bill Paterson is a fine narrator and does a great job with his authoritive and reassuring tones perfectly complementing the visual material.
 
The retail set should come with ten bonus interviews which were not on the review discs.
 

Final Thoughts

This is a fine set of programmes and one I hope to watch again, hopefully after another Lions series victory, though even if they lose, this is an important and revealing historical document about one of the most controversial sporting series ever.