SOME days sporting officialdom just grinds you down.

Take the British and Ireland Lions tour to New Zealand. A mere 40 seconds in and Lions skipper Brian O'Driscoll - comfortably their most potent attacking force - is swept up in a despicable pincer-tackle movement and speared into the sodden Christchurch turf by his All Blacks counterpart Tana Umaga and hooker Keven Mealamu.

O'Driscoll's plainly and pain-driven yelp was still audible amid the mayhem din of a stadium baying at the start of a three-Test series anticipated for months. That wretched cry signalled that, for the Lions captain, his tour was over.

Subsequently it was discovered he had dislocated a shoulder, which took close to half an hour to put back in. But as the likeable Irishman later sighed with an admirably restrained fury, the damage could easily have been much, much worse.

Initial television evidence of the incident was unclear as to how O'Driscoll was unceremoniously dumped out of the tour. But video pictures were eventually produced by the rightly aggrieved Lions management. Together with O'Driscoll's recollection of the tawdry tackle they demonstrated the guilt of his Kiwi attackers.

Yet when all the confirmation was presented to the match commissioner Willem Venter, it was decided that no action be taken against the two men responsible for tipping the helpless O'Driscoll over and down and thereby ripping the Lions dream out of the Leinster star's grasp.

Contrast that with the fate of Lions lock Danny Grewcock, who was banned for two months after being found guilty of biting Mealamu later on in the same match that ended in such a dispiriting 21-3 defeat for the tourists.

The bullocking Bath forward strenuously protested his innocence, yet he is now exiled until late August due to the punishment handed down by judicial officer Terry Willis after a hearing lasting eight hours. If he was guilty as the disciplinary panel found, then Grewcock, who has been hit by previous bans collected in New Zealand seven years ago and last summer, deserved to be punished.

But for Umaga, a man whom O'Driscoll lauded for his warrior and gentlemanly spirit on the eve of this tour, and Mealamu to escape any censure whatsoever for what was nothing less than off-the-ball thuggery is as unbelievable as it is disgraceful. O'Driscoll patently had been singled out so the spear-tackle smacked not just of intimidation but also pre-meditation.

Lord knows how the unsavoury challenge will now rebound through the rest of the Test series.

Badly beaten, that is legitimately on the field of play, the Lions will have to banish any thoughts of revenge for their stricken leader if they are to have any chance of levelling in Wellington this Saturday to set up the final exchange in Auckland's Eden Park on July 9. It goes against all sportsmanship, but I'd fully understand any of the Lions being pell-mell bent on acts of retribution.

Such a prospect might well have been nipped in the bud had the tour's administrators cracked down on the challenge, the ugliness of which could permeate the rest of the tour.

But once again bureaucracy has bumbled along showing a complete lack of back-bone, bottle, bravery - call it what you will.

Thank God then for rugby league. In the light of the challenge on O'Driscoll, the 13-man code reiterated its determination to outlaw the spear tackle.

Re-affirming its recent directive, RFL match officials director Stuart Cummings said: "Spear tackling is illegal in rugby league. Any player who lifts an opponent beyond the horizontal in a tackle is immediately penalised."

Four months ago, Leeds Rhinos winger Marcus Bai and Hull forward Stephen Kearney were both ordered by the Supreme Court in Sydney to pay damages to former New Zealand captain Jarrod McCracken after being found guilty of a spear tackle in a match in Australia in 2000. Rugby union powers, please take note.

Updated: 11:34 Tuesday, June 28, 2005