With the South Africans pitching up in town for Saturday's unofficial World title bout, who better to approach for some pre-match trash-talking than coach and noted ballet-hater Peter de Villiers.

Even though the two principal characters of this summer's eye-gouging episode -- namely Lions' victim, Luke Fitzgerald and the perpetrator, Schalk Burger -- will be marked absent this Saturday, it would be a shame to waste another opportunity to indulge in the latest Irish sporting craze of 'not getting over it'.

To remind readers, it was of course De Villiers and his refusal to condemn Burger's offence in the second Lions Test in Pretoria, until forced into an embarrassing climbdown by his employers, which so agitated the sporting world last summer.

eccentric

The eccentric South African, unfortunately for those of us seeking blood, has gotten over the limited amount of 'it' he deemed necessary to get over. No bad blood then?

"Well, I think the bad blood was only with you guys," De Villiers, with commendable patience, answers. "There was no bad blood with us. We extended the hand to them, like we do in all our other games, to have the opposing team come to our dressing-room and we provide them with a beer or two so the guys could mingle. They never accepted that invitation."

All fine then? Think again. "I don't think there was anything extraordinary on the field of play that could cause bad blood," he adds, bafflingly.

"Again, it's where you stand and look at things. I think most of the reports were over-rated over here. Guys were looking for things that were non-existent. For us, there's nothing. We are here to do a job. The blood thing is nothing that can affect us."

Well, we hardly expected a second apology, did we? Still, Saturday's IRB awards in Dublin could be an interesting evening, especially after South African captain John Smit's pointed comments in his autobiography, claiming that a senior Lions tourist was behind the refusal to share a post-match beer.

Munster's new South African signing Jean de Villiers has spoken to Lions captain Paul O'Connell about the whole farrago and concluded that it was all a misunderstanding rather than a pointed diplomatic snub.

"Maybe they don't like South African beer!" the coach exclaimed yesterday, before further placing rugby into its non-balletic context. "Rugby is like any other sport. It is like swimming. You are there to build bridges.

"There is nothing between the players on the field. When they leave the field they are really disappointed when they lose and they feel great when they win.

"But that goes on now for over a century. Nothing's changed. Not all of us have the same mental approach to the game, not all of us worry the same about winning and losing. So we have to respect that too as individuals.

"Some people will take a loss and move on, others will sit on it for three days. We just have to respect those kind of things because it is human nature."

Perhaps they'll share a beer this time? Here's mud in your, erm, eye and all that?

"We'll be there," declares De Villiers. "I don't think we should make a big thing out of that. My choice is to have bit of lunch with you. The person next to me doesn't want to have lunch with you. Why make a big deal of it? That's life, you know. As long as we cherish this great game and be servants of it and make a difference through it, that's all that counts."

De Villiers does, however, delineate the difference between the British and Irish influence on this summer's Lions tour, before careering into matters of even deeper historical resonance. He may be many things but boring ain't one of them.

"If I started to list who impressed me it would take all day. They're a good bunch of players. They were the Irish team camouflaged in a red jersey in South Africa and we know it.

"I think this Irish team can be much better than the Lions were because they have played together for much longer and shared stuff you have to build quickly on a Lions tour.

"You can't look at November form in isolation. They have won eight games this year, so they're on a roll. They're a proud nation, built on certain things from history where they had to fight hard to achieve what they had to achieve in life.

"And you can't separate life from rugby, we all know that. For us, we respect those things. We never had that in our country, we didn't have to fight so hard to be recognised in the world. We have all the talent out there too. And our readmission came a little easy for us.

"But this will be only one more win for us. There are no international games that are less important than any other. Our 43 million people at home like to back winners. We like to bring the hope to our country.

"And we saw what a great tool rugby is to build our country off the field too. So we have an obligation and a responsibility towards our people to make them have a better life. So all the wins are important. That's why we play this game. We will never prepare for any game not to win.

Passion

"We focus on every game we played this year. We're a proud nation. Sometimes you miss the point when you see us. We are only 37 people here representing a proud nation. Any game, even at primary school, you can watch the passion of our parents -- come over and see for yourself! For us, this is important but only another international game."

The last time the South Africans rolled into town, De Villiers' World Cup-winning predecessor, Jake White, caused arguably even more upset than his openside by declaring that only two of the then top-three ranked Irish side would make his selection. De Villiers, perhaps offering an apt parable for current times, chose not to dabble in a similarly hypothetical ruse.

"My grandfather said something to me 40 years ago and I live by that to this day," he tells us. "You only look back if you want to go in that direction. We don't intend going in that direction now."

Or, in other words, get over it.

- David Kelly

Irish Independent