Ugo Monye has vowed to prove his try-scoring instincts remain intact and help the Lions to a face-saving third Test victory against South Africa.
The England winger was dropped from the side after missing two clear-cut chances in the 26-21 first Test defeat.
“I still believe I have a good natural instinct to score tries; it is probably my biggest asset,” he said.
“I know that given opportunities, the disappointment I felt will drive me on to make sure I take them this time.”
With four tries in the warm-up matches, Monye is the joint leading try-scorer on the 2009 tour alongside Tommy Bowe.
But his pride at being selected for the first Test swiftly turned to anguish at the two tries that went begging in the tourists’ defeat in Durban.
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Shane Williams, Ugo Monye and Phil Vickery all have a bit of restoration work to do on reputations partially tarnished by recent events
“Sport takes you to the greatest peaks and drags you down into the darkest troughs,” said the 26-year-old Harlequins flyer.
“Getting picked for the first Test was the proudest moment of my life but I was absolutely gutted afterwards, not just to lose it but contributing to that as well.
“You do wonder if you will get another opportunity with the other great wingers out here but I am very fortunate. I have another chance and I am looking to grab it with both hands. I am certainly not doubting myself.”
When the final analysis is done on the reasons the Lions narrowly lost, rather than won, the first two Tests, Monye’s contribution is bound to be highlighted.
Eight minutes into the first Test, with the Lions 7-0 down, he went over in the left corner only for the television match official to finally rule he had not grounded the ball, with Springboks centre Jean de Villiers getting his hand under it.
“I am not sure you will ever see a tackle like that again,” Monye said. “I was six inches from the ground, God knows how he got his arm under the ball, it is just beyond me.”
When the Lions staged a stirring last-quarter fightback, Monye again seemed destined to score with eight minutes left, only for Morne Steyn to knock the ball out of his grasp over the line.
Monye crossed twice in the 74-10 win over the Golden Lions on 3 June
“To be perfectly honest I didn’t see Steyn coming out of my blind spot, which was disappointing,” he noted. “I have just got to have a bit more respect for the ball.
“It was really frustrating but you have to credit the guys who made the tackles.
“I have been the one who has done that before this season [for England on Thom Evans in the Six Nations match with Scotland, and for Harlequins on Brian O’Driscoll in a Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster at The Stoop].
“I know how happy I was as a defender to stop those tries, but as an attacker, you are desperate to score them. That is the winger’s job. I had a couple of opportunities I didn’t take but fortunately I have got another opportunity to put things right.”
Monye admits being omitted altogether from the 22 for last week’s second Test in Pretoria “was a tough pill to swallow”.
But with Bowe moving to centre in the wake of injuries to O’Driscoll and Jamie Roberts, he has been recalled on the right wing for the final Test at Ellis Park, where the Lions succumbed 35-16 on their last tour in 1997, having already won the series.
This time the roles are reversed, but Monye – one of six Englishmen in the starting line-up – insists Saturday’s clash between two much-changed teams is far from a ‘dead rubbber’.
“There has been a lot of heartache over the last couple of weeks in the manner we have lost the two Tests but there is still a lot to play for,” he added.
Martyn Williams column
It is going to be a full-on Test match
Martyn Williams
“Motivation is not difficult to find for this game. Training has been good this week and every time you put on that Lions jersey you want to give a great account of yourself and this week is no different.
“The series is gone and we are gutted about that but it is still a Lions Test against South Africa and it would be great to give our fantastic supporters something to cheer about.
“We have got massive belief and trust in our system and if we continue to do that, and hopefully get a few breaks going our way, we will definitely be there or thereabouts.”
Played annually, the format of the Championship is simple: each team plays every other team once, with home field advantage alternating from one year to the next. Two points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. Unlike many other rugby union competitions the bonus point system is not used.
If a team wins all its games, they are said to have won a ‘Grand Slam’. Back to back Grand Slams have been achieved on five occasions, by Wales in 1908 and 1909, by England in 1913 and 1914, 1923 and 1924 and 1991 and 1992, and by France in 1997 and 1998. England holds the record for the number of Grand Slams won with 12, followed by Wales with 10, France with 8, Scotland with 3 and Ireland with 2.
Victory by any Home Nation over the other three Home Nations is a ‘Triple Crown’. The Triple Crown has twice been won on four consecutive occasions, once by Wales in 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979 and once by England in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998. England hold the record for the number of Triple Crowns won with 23, followed by Wales with 20, Scotland with 10 and Ireland with 10. Although this achievement has long been a feature of the tournament, it was not until 2006 that a physical trophy, commissioned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, was awarded.
At the end of the tournament a team that finishes at the bottom of the table is said to have won the Wooden Spoon.
Several individual competitions take place under the umbrella of the tournament. The oldest such regular competition is for the Calcutta Cup, contested annually between England and Scotland since 1879. It is named the Calcutta Cup as it is made from melted-down Indian Rupees. Since 1988, the Millennium Trophy has been awarded to the winner of the game between England and Ireland. Since 2007, France and Italy have contested the Giuseppe Garibaldi Trophy; it was created for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian hero who helped unify Italy. Garibaldi was born in Nizza (now the French city of Nice) in 1807.
Prior to 1994, teams equal on points shared the championship. Since then, ties have been broken by considering the points difference of the teams. The rules of the championship further provide that if teams tie on both match points and points difference, the team which scored the most tries wins the championship. If even this decider is tied, the tying teams share the championship.[2] To date, however, match points and points difference have been sufficient to decide the championship.
