A good small-un beats a big-un every time

Subject: A good "small-un" beats a "big-un" every time.

They say that to live in this climatically bleak southern tip of New Zealand you have to be tough. I remember being in Dunedin, the equivalent of a dourer Spartan Scottish town, built of granite,  a piece of Scotland on this cold windswept southern tip of New Zealand's South Island. It was in 1964. I was living in a small canvas tent, no ground sheet, no mattress hitch hiking in (old T Fords) driven by delightful honest down to earth people who went out of their way to assist. There was no assisting today on the rugby field. The climate drilled into the people a toughness, a resolute toughness which showed its self in abundance in the match between the Lions and the Crusaders.
As with all provincial matches in this land of Rugby Football each game is fought with a self belief and a ferocity which makes each game like a test match. The sublime skills of the Maori, heir to a history of South Seas exploration, his balance and natural flamboyance encourage him to play an unconventional game, continually probing not in the set piece but with ball in the hand at full speed careering down field, jigging this way and that making it up as he goes along. Pure instinct, pure skill, poetry in motion and a joy to watch.
Our own warriors didn't play poorly. We saw the individuals who have entertained us at home on the five nation circuit do the things we expect of them but at times it was pedestrian, training field moves, worked out combinations, the best we can come up with but short of the creativity that the Crusaders showed.
This of course is not an All Black side, it's a side made up of local yokels. Drawn from an area who's  population of 120.000, a large component of which is made up of students attending Otago University. Dunedin and the only other town of merit, Invercargill are small pickings when compared to the populations of the Home Nations, from which the Lions are drawn but as is evidenced in this small but stable country, a "small un" beats a "big un" every time.