Alastair Hignell: Stay-away fans not amused by phoney war before Lions Test clashes

Where have all the fans gone? For the third match in a row on their tour to South Africa, the British and Irish Lions played in a stadium that was at best half-full.

Even the broadcasters – who have a reputation for relocating their cameras to get as much crowd as possible into shot – could not avoid showing vast swathes of seating without a single supporter.

The contrast to the French Championship final, won by Perpignan in front of a delirious 80,000 fans at Paris's Stade de France, could not have been more marked.

The fact that it is easier and cheaper to get to Paris from Catalonia and the Auvergne – home of defeated finalists Clermont – than it is to get to the high veldt from Britain and Ireland should not be discounted in these uncertain economic times, but it hardly accounts for the absence of home fans at Rustenburg, Johannesburg and Bloemfontein.

There might have been an excuse at the first of those venues in that the local Super 14 side, the Blue Bulls, were hosting the final of that competition just up the road in Pretoria, but not even a hike in admission prices could account for the paucity of supporters in two of South Africa's traditional rugby hotbeds.

It would seem that while the home fans might have paid more to get a glimpse of a touring team that only came their way every twelve years, they were reluctant to do so if their own team was stripped of stars.

Admittedly, only centre Jaques Fourie and uncapped back Earl Rose would have been available for the Golden Lions, and only Jonge Nokwe and Juan Smith for the Cheetahs, but the decision of Springbok coach Peter de Villiers to keep those players in camp sent the clearest of messages.

If he was prepared to downgrade matches against upcoming Test opponents, why should the fans take them seriously?

Of course they could sympathise with his reasons – De Villiers didn't want to give the tourists a chance to analyse any of the players they might face in the Test series – but they couldn't help feeling they were the recipients of mixed messages.

On the one hand there was de Villiers echoing Bernie Habana – father of Springbok star Bryan – in describing what watching the 1974 Lions had meant to him, with national captain John Smit waxing lyrical about a once in a lifetime opportunity to face the tourists.

On the other, de Villiers was deliberately denying that opportunity to some of the players of 2009 – it's extremely unlikely all of his 28-man squad will play in the Tests – at the same time as denying current fans the sort of experience that had helped shape his own and Habana's life. But mixed messages have not been confined to the Springboks.

Ian McGeechan, pictured, and the Lions management have made much of the quasi-religious nature of the Lions touring experience but while they have been faithfully adhering to their stated aim of giving every single one of their players the chance to stake a claim for a Test place, they have also – according to some observers – been holding something back.

There's a school of thought – influenced in part by the unevenness of the displays in the first three tour matches – that suggests that they are deliberately keeping some shots in their locker, that while showing all their players to the note-taking Springbok coaches, they are not showing anywhere near all of their attacking weapons.

Nor, according to that line of argument, are they going to do so until the Test matches themselves.

It seems increasingly likely that the first time the team for the first Test – at Durban a week on Saturday gets to play together will be in the match itself.

For both sides, it seems, the element of surprise is crucial. The Springboks are holding back players, the Lions are holding back ploys. But if the Tests are so all-important to both sides and all we've got left is a phoney war from which the paying public is keeping its distance, it raises the question; who are these warm-up matches really for?

On the last three tours, it was quite obvious that the local economy benefitted hugely from the influx of thousands of free-spending fans.

From the evidence of this tour so far, they've been sorely missed. South African hoteliers and tour operators will be anxiously scanning the skies for the plane-loads expected any day now. Lions players and management will be just as anxious to get the party started.