Graeme Hill: It's called drama ... I loved it

Graeme Hill

If only it was soccer instead of rugby and Fifa thought it wise to sanction the musi-nonsense we hear at our rugby games.

Just imagine ... David Beckham steps up in a penalty shoot-out against Argentina in a World Cup semifinal to the blasting pop-backdrop of "Victoria, what do you see in him!? See eee in him?!"

Now THAT'S relevant. Good luck Dave and good Luck, Jordan.

I watched the second test with the composer of one of the Kiwi classics belted out during breaks in play. He said that he really hated the imposition of music, until HIS song was included. Ka-ching!

I'm loath to go on here. I really am. I considered the alternative. Shut up and do the easy thing, but I thought better of it.

The timing may be bad but between the last column and this one some strange things have unfolded.

In that time I've heard the word "spin" a total of 157 times, and the more I hear it the more I fear we're willingly spinning ourselves out into an oxygen deprived orbit.

Alistair Campbell may well be the most unnecessary individual in the over-engineered Lions party, but thankfully I missed every bit of his or anybody else's immediate post-test efforts last week and can be excused from any effect from the perceived Lions' media manipulation.

I saw the "tackle" without a blip of Woodward-Campbell input and it looked bad. Full bloody stop.

I don't for a second infer intent or maliciousness. That's impossible to know. It just looked bad.

What was disturbing was the reaction from much of New Zealand. If you did the apparently unthinkable and said that it deserved attention, or God forbid, that Sir Clive may have a point, then you were attacking the All Blacks and Campbell had successfully hypnotised you.

Huh? Alistair who? Oh, the Iraq weapons of mass destruction duping dude. Sorry. I didn't catch his show. I came to a point of view all by myself.

It's important for media to recognise or admit when it's been manipulated but equally importantly it must NEVER be the role of our media to act as spin for the All Blacks or anybody, if you want good journalism, that is.

Given that, I also have no problem whatsoever with the All Blacks' position over the matter. It was out of their control and they had no need to worry about it and should not have reacted at all, but they did and that fuelled the situation.

Spin, if you like to wheel out that term, can work both ways and the rich irony was, that on Saturday. Well, you tell me for whom the spin worked.

There was a wondrous bonus from the overreaction by the Lions, the All Blacks and New Zealand in general to the first test O'Driscoll incident.

It meant that the second test was fairly bursting with possibilities. Hot-blooded rat-in-a-corner scrapping from the Lions and nail 'em, thrusting, point-proving from the All Blacks.

Thrill is a rare commodity when it comes to vicarious experience and our group on Saturday night was utterly thrilled. Even some of the music got an ironic clap.

The lounge was filled with debate and elation. "This team is behaving like the 1996 side but they hold much more potential," I bleated, over and over again to the tolerant boredom of mates assembled.

The test was unscripted, unknowable, fired with potential and then totally realised.

Carter's freakish skills going on and on and on. Jerry Collins' fist in the air was simultaneously celebratory and defiant. He's no Tommy Smith or Johnny Carlos but it was pretty damned good anyhow and it gave an indication of the spirit of the team.

It also didn't take a lip-reading course to work out what a Lions front rower was screaming to a prone Tana Umaga at the bottom of a ruck ... "Get up you little bastard!"

Wow. The preceding week was worth it! The whole show was what makes sport uniquely wonderful as a spectacle. I've seen Hamlet probably a dozen times. Top stuff, Dubya Shakespeare. It's great, but I know how it ends already. On Saturday night I had no idea what was going to happen next. Ahhhh, sport.

I wasn't missing the press conferences this time.

"Punching doesn't belong in the game," said Graham Henry. Okay. Fair point, but I make no apologies. I LOVED it and so did everybody watching. It's called drama! It was the genius bastard child of tension.

Sir Clive, head down, challenged the limits of understatement with "The score got away from us a bit", but he was also glowing in his praise of the All Blacks' performance.

Bagging Sir Clive has almost overtaken rugby as the national sport and I can't help but feel we're being a little peevish.

Okay, he's made monumentally expensive blunders but let's at least be gracious winners because I know that many an All Black fan wouldn't have had the grace that the Lions fans have shown in defeat.

Good on you guys and I hope Auckland treats you well.