Howley keen to make early runs

The Lions open their tour in one of the grand theatres of Australian cricket today, driven by a Welshman's obsessive quest for the Test status cruelly denied him four years ago.

Nobody will have more of a vested interest in keeping the scoreboard rattling along at Perth's WACA Ground than Rob Howley, who is still so peeved at missing the last Lions adventure through injury that he has never been able to bring himself to watch the celebrated video of the victorious series in South Africa.

The amateurs of Western Australia fear they will be on the wrong end of a cricket score. And Howley, for one, will be in no mood to show mercy for a team captained by Trefor Thomas, a Londoner who used to play in the English League for Eton Manor and whose current team includes an itinerant New Zealand flanker fresh from a stint in Northern Ireland as a nightclub bouncer.

The last time Howley wore the Lions jersey, against Natal in Durban in June 1997, he was the undisputed No. 1 scrum half preparing for the first Test against the Spring-boks the following week. Then an awkward fall cleared the way for his English understudy Matt Dawson to make history, by which time Howley was back in Cardiff recovering from a shoulder operation.

Howley said: 'It depresses me every time I think about it. This will be my last Lions tour, I'm determined to take every opportunity and there is nothing better than to play in the first game.'

Staying there for the opening Test on June 30 at another cricket stadium, Brisbane's Gabba, means fighting off challenges for the position from two Englishmen - Dawson and form scrum half Austin Healey.