'Hey, shut up!' Lions and South Africa camps disagree amid unheard verbals inside stadium

It was no surprise that the referee was the main, perhaps the only, talking point on Saturday. Such was the way the discourse around the officials had been muddied with an ugly sequence of bizarre events, it was inevitable. From Rassie Erasmus being the only man to choose Vimeo over YouTube, to his interactions with anonymous Twitter accounts concerning the performance of referee Nick Berry in the aftermath of the Springboks’ first Test defeat last weekend, it was all bound to come to a head in the second Test. Given how unpalatable the week had been thanks to Erasmus’ deeds, we got what we got – a stop-start, bloated affair marked out by every marginal call somehow being bigger than the last just because the shouts were louder. This shouldn’t have been about Ben O’Keeffe. But, of course, it was in truth. You knew that when one journalist ironically shouted “Go on, Ben!” just before kick-off. Given the fact Siya Kolisi had claimed to be disrespected by Berry, Alun Wyn Jones wasn’t going to miss a trick. When the pair of captains were first called into speak with O’Keeffe, Jones’ body language was perfection. Stood with arms behind his back,…
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