I am of Irish descent. My dad was a proud Ulsterman from Belfast. Among much of the Irish folklore he taught his four youngsters was the legend of the Leprechauns, those little bearded fellows with pointy green hats that come out of hiding in the twilight.
Just last night at the bottom of my garden they told me that the Sharks are going to beat the Lions on Saturday. I love those little fellows who say the unlikeliest things when they come out to play. I even love the men in white who are taking me away!
Ha ha. So yes I am pointing fun at my Irish ancestry but heck let’s be serious for a moment and talk rugby.
Over the last two years Ireland have beaten the All Blacks twice, once in Chicago and then in Dublin a year later. We are talking about a New Zealand team that seemed to be invincible and cruising to a record of wins against tier one nations - only to be stopped in their tracks - in Chicago of all places. Al Capone must have been placing a bet from his grave.
And then there was a sprinkling of Irishmen in the Lions team that beat the All BLacks in Wellington a few weeks ago and drew the match in Eden Park, to leave the series at a stalemate that nobody could have predicted.
What I am saying, if you will forgive my celebration of being Irish, is that the Pluck of the Irish, never mind the luck the same jolly folk can conjure up, can produce the unexpected.
No team is guaranteed victory in sport. Ask the Springboks when they played Japan in the first round of the 2015 Rugby World Cup. I was at that game in Brighton and when Heyneke Meyer and Jean de Villiers fronted the media, they looked like ghosts.
If you had asked them then if they believed in Leprechauns - or a Japanese equivalent - they would have nodded.
But if we cut through the fantasy and get real, the Lions (the Johannesburg ones) are not unbeatable even if their record of 13 games undefeated at Ellis Park suggests otherwise.
Like the All Blacks, they are not omnipotent. Sport is all about the mental state you are in when you pitch up for a match that has do-or-die status.
The Sharks were not in the Last Chance Saloon last week when they played the Lions in Durban because the outcome of the match simply did not matter (unless the Sharks had fluked a win to become the toast of Christchurch).
Of course the Sharks wanted to initiate some form after losing to the Bulls in their previous game, but in the back of their minds was the fact that it did not matter if they lost because that would mean a much more feasible quarter-final against the Lions at Ellis Park than one against the Crusaders in Christchurch, after 24 hours of exhausting travel.
That was the reality of the situation.
You can’t tell players that it is do or die when it is not. Which is why the Sharks will be a completely different
animal at Ellis Park this weekend.
Now it IS do or die. Sharks wing Kobus van Wyk had a wonderful way of putting it, and this obviously came up in a team talk on Monday.
“We are adopting the Vikings approach. When they invaded a new land they wanted to conquer, they burned their boats upon beaching. Why? Because it signified that they were not going back. It was forward to victory or nothing. They could rebuild new boats later when victory was secured.”
For Sharks fans, it is encouraging indeed to hear of the mental state the Sharks are going to be in come kick-off on Saturday.
May the luck of the Irish and the venom of the Vikings be with them!
And do not be surprised to hear of a burning bus outside Ellis Park just before kick-off ...
The Mercury