EXCLUSIVE By DUNCAN JOHNSTONE - RugbyHeaven | Wednesday, 26 September 2007
Tana Umaga has revealed that he and Brian O'Driscoll still haven't resolved the bad feelings over Umaga's controversial tackle that removed the Lions leader from the 2005 series with the All Blacks in New Zealand – and they probably never will.
The pair have spoken over the matter but have "agreed to disagree".
O'Driscoll is clearly still unhappy with the tackle that took him out of the series after the opening minutes of the first test in Christchurch and left him needing surgery.
Umaga, who reveals his side of the story in his new biography Tana Umaga – Up Close, seems content to let sleeping dogs lie and feels little remorse.
He thought nothing of the tackle at the time of the match but watched the matter snowball into a major incident the following week where heat was placed on him by the Lions' management.
The Lions maintained it was a spear tackle but Umaga escaped the judiciary system and played a major role in the All Blacks' 3-nil sweep of the series.
Now, with Umaga retired from test rugby, he reopens the controversy in a book authored by Paul Thomas.
It comes at a time when O'Driscoll is in charge of Ireland's faltering World Cup campaign in France.
In his book Umaga says he tried to get in touch with O'Driscoll in Christchurch after the incident. But he only managed to make contact with him when the Lions series had switched to Wellington the following week for the next test.
It quickly became clear to Umaga that there was bad blood in the air.
"It wasn't a warm exchange. He was still angry that I hadn't gone over to see how he was and once he'd got that off his chest, he accused me of being involved in a lot of off-the-ball incidents," says Umaga in his book.
"The Lions hadn't been impressed with the way I'd played, he said, and I had to watch it. I said, 'Don't talk to me about off-the-ball incidents, talk to your own players.' (With all the fuss the Lions had made over the O'Driscoll incident, it had almost been overlooked that their lock Danny Grewcock, a player with a history of foul play, had been cited, found guilty, and banned for biting Keven Mealamu.) 'Look at Grewcock,' I said. 'He's a meathead.' 'Yeah, he is a meathead,' he said. "You can't change that but we're better than that. We shouldn't play like those guys. We thought you were a gentleman.'
"While he went on along those lines, I was thinking to myself, hang on, this is a game I take seriously. And I did: I aimed to let an opponent know I was out there and get into his mind so that next time he'd have a look to see if I was coming. I'd body-check him on the way through or if I came up quickly and the pass didn't go to him, I'd still give him a little reminder that I was around so he knew that if he didn't have his wits about him, he could get hit, and hit hard.
"I had no qualms about it; that was how I played. That's the gamesmanship of rugby. Players sledge. I sledged a bit and did so in that game. I was always trying to get an edge and in that respect I was no different to a lot of players.
"But when he started talking about off-the-ball stuff and me not being a gentleman I thought, oh, you're reaching now. I never went out to commit foul play: I didn't punch guys on the ground or stomp on them.
"So I said, 'Oh well, mate, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm sorry for what happened to you but there was no intent in it; it was one of those unfortunate things that happen in rugby.'
"He said, 'Yeah, but you could've helped it.' 'Okay, mate,' I said, 'all the best.' And that was where we left it."
Here's how Umaga describes the tackle on O'Driscoll:
"I went into a ruck and cleaned out Brian O'Driscoll. I was standing over the ball trying to protect it when he bounced back to have another crack at disrupting our possession. We were tussling as he tried to get through and I grabbed his leg to try to unbalance him, a technique I'd used before and still use to this day.
"What I didn't realise was that Keven Mealamu was doing the same thing on the other side of the ruck. As I got one of O'Driscoll's legs up, Keven hoisted his other leg and drove him back. He ended up with both feet off the ground, not in control of himself or the situation, a position rugby players often find themselves in. When we let him go he came down and what happened, happened. I didn't think anything of it, I just took off."
Umaga braced himself for some retaliation from the Lions in the second test in the Cake Tin and it wasn't long coming.
"As a ruck broke up, Paul O'Connell loomed over me ranting and raving. As I got up, their props Julian White and Gethin Jenkins started pushing and shoving. I knew it was going to happen at some stage so I just said, 'Come on, any time, just bring it.' I backed away slowly looking at them and saying, 'Are you going to start playing soon or what?'
"Later, when O'Connell went down, I went over to him as he was rolling around the ground and said, 'Mate, don't give up now, we're just getting started.' He jumped straight up.
"When Stephen Jones came on for Jonny Wilkinson he took the ball up yelling, 'For our captain!' like something out of Braveheart. I said, 'Are you serious?' You could see how they were trying to motivate themselves but it became quite laughable.
"I got into some of their forwards about being a bit chubby and after the game Jenkins said to Steve Hansen, who'd coached him when he'd been with Wales, 'Can you tell Tana it's nothing personal, it's just the game.' That was a bit rich coming from them. I told Steve I didn't see any of it in personal terms."
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