Unbelievable Jeff!

Dylan Hartley just about managed to keep a straight face when asked about the prospect of playing against the formidable Munster front five, including Lions captain Paul O’Connell, in their Heineken Cup opener at Franklin’s Gardens.

“Don’t know who they are,” he said with a smile. It seems the 23-year-old England hooker is not afraid to indulge in mind games in his first season as captain of Northampton.

Munster are no strangers to such tactics themselves, but O’Connell may take extra notice of Hartley’s nomination of the leader he has drawn most inspiration from – the man who helped plot the Lions’ downfall, Springboks captain John Smit.

“I like the way John Smit plays and controls the game,” Hartley said. “He is someone I like to watch. He impressed me during the Lions series and in the Tri-Nations.

“I like the way he talks to the referees and the way he plays the game. He has moved to tighthead prop but still gets involved in the game and is still playing good rugby. It is not easy to go from hooker to tighthead.”

Having Northampton’s former captain, Bruce Reihana, in the side is a big help to Hartley, who plays down his own influence as leader of a side who will hope to reproduce their impressive form in the Guinness Premiership during their European campaign.

“Just because I am the captain doesn’t mean he sits in the corner and doesn’t say anything,” said Hartley, who makes up a new-look front row with props Santiago Bonorino and Soane Tonga’uiha. “When you look at Bruce, he is the ultimate professional and young players look at him as a role model.”

Hartley will lead a much-changed pack, with former Ulster flanker Neil Best no doubt relishing the contest against the Irish province as he returns to the back row in place of Mark Easter, while Courtney Lawes starts at lock.

Hartley will go head-to-head with Jerry Flannery, who starts his first game since recovering from the elbow injury that ruled him out of the Lions tour. O’Connell and David Wallace also return after Munster’s surprise 30-0 defeat by Leinster last weekend.

“We could turn up against Munster and get a hiding; we could turn up as underdogs and the unknown and win,” Hartley added.

Back to those mind games.

ANAHEIM – Having the ball taken from his hand in the middle of an inning in the playoffs is not something Josh Beckett is used to.

It happened on Friday night at Angel Stadium, because the hard-throwing right-hander was unable to close out the seventh inning.

After surrendering a two-out RBI single to Maicer Izturis and a two-run triple to Erick Aybar, Beckett was replaced with his team trailing by three runs.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona relieved his big-game right-hander with lefty Billy Wagner, who stranded Aybar at third by striking out Chone Figgins.

Yet the damage was done as the Angels claimed a 4-1 victory to grab a 2-0 advantage in the best-of-five American League Division Series.

“This one is mine,” Beckett said, accepting responsibility for the loss. “It stinks. If I make one of those two pitches, maybe they don’t have to score three runs. They score one.”

In command through six innings, Beckett and Angels right-hander Jered Weaver were locked in a 1-1 tie.

Momentum shifted in the seventh, as Beckett lost command of his offspeed pitches.

“I made a terrible pitch to Izturis. I made a terrible pitch to Aybar,” Beckett said. “When you have poor location, you get your butt kicked.”

Once the damage was done, Francona went to the bullpen.

“Tito has to manage the game,” Beckett said.

Already established as one of the top big-game pitchers of his era, Beckett saw his playoff record fall to 7-3. The last time he lost in the postseason was in Game 3 of the 2003 World Series, when he was with the Marlins.

Since that game against the Yankees, Beckett was 6-0 with a 3.04 ERA in eight postseason starts.

Entering the seventh inning on Friday, Beckett hadn’t walked a batter, and the right-hander was economical with his pitches – compiling a total of 75.

With Vladimir Guerrero leading off the seventh inning, Beckett went after the slugger with a dose of breaking balls.

Beckett started the sequence with three consecutive offspeed pitches, with none finding the strike zone. After taking a fastball for a strike, Guerrero drew the only walk the Boston starter allowed on the night.

“It’s Vlady up there. My approach hasn’t changed much in the last six or seven years facing him,” Beckett said. “I’m definitely trying not to leave a breaking ball up over the plate there.”

Beckett also fell behind 3-0 in the count to Kendry Morales, who eventually lifted a fly ball to left field for the first out. On a night Beckett was throwing strikes, signs of trouble came when he faced successive 3-0 counts to open the inning.

“I would never take him out after a 3-0 count,” Francona said. “He’s thrown a three- or four-hitter going into that inning. No, I didn’t think he was tired. I thought he was fine.”

Howard Kendrick pinch-ran for Guerrero, and with one out he stole second. Mike Lowell at third base made a nice stop on Juan Rivera’s hard ground ball to third for the second out.

Despite having a runner on second base, Beckett was in position to close out the inning with the score knotted at 1. But Izturis singled to center on a breaking ball that was up.

The frustrations of the inning mounted when Mike Napoli was hit by a 2-1 breaking ball. The ball plunked Napoli on the back. Immediately, Beckett contended to home-plate umpire CB Bucknor that Napoli didn’t make an attempt to get out of the way. Francona came out of the dugout to make a similar case.

During the exchange, Beckett was upset that Bucknor wouldn’t listen to his plea.

“I wasn’t much ticked off that he wouldn’t overturn the pitches, but show me a little bit of respect,” Beckett said. “He just straight-faced me and then walked away. I went up to [catcher] Victor Martinez. I said, ‘Vic, he’d be ticked if I did that to him.’ I’m not asking him to even overturn it, just listen to what I have to say. Don’t like, take your mask off, straight-face me and then walk away. I can’t say anything to the point of getting thrown out.”

Beckett added the hit by pitch didn’t carry over to his approach to Aybar, who padded the Angels’ lead with his two-run triple.

But after that triple, Beckett’s night was over after 103 pitches.

Now down two games, the Red Sox are in need of three consecutive victories to advance. If a fifth game is forced, Beckett would be back on the mound.

“I thought he pitched pretty good,” Red Sox shortstop Alex Gonzalez said. “He was very good tonight, but he had that bad inning. It’s a five-game series, maybe he can come back here and have another chance.”

ANAHEIM — John Lackey on Thursday night wasn’t in much of a giving mood.

Even when the Red Sox had some opportunities against the Angels’ right-hander, they weren’t able to capitalise.

Behind Lackey’s 7 1/3 shutout innings, the Angels blanked the Red Sox, 5-0, to claim Game 1 of the American League Division Series.

Darren Oliver chipped in with 1 2/3 innings of hitless ball, and the Angels handed the Red Sox their first shutout in the postseason since facing the Indians in Game 2 of the 1995 ALDS.

“Everyone has been here before,” Dustin Pedroia said. “We lost the first game. You don’t win one and the series is over. That’s not how it goes. We’ll come out tomorrow, and we need to play a lot better than we did today.”

Lackey surrendered just four singles, frustrating a Boston offence that was shut out seven times during the regular season.

“He had a lot of life on his fastball,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said of Lackey. “He was able to locate his fastball with two different directions. He was good. He was real good.”

The Red Sox’s first five hitters were 1-for-18, collecting only a Pedroia single in the sixth inning.

“We’ve got to have better at-bats,” Pedroia said. “I felt like early in the game, we were kind of a little bit rusty. We had three days off. You could tell [our] timing was a little bit off. You could tell later in the game we had better at-bats. Hopefully we’ll come out tomorrow and swing the bats better and have a better result.”

The best-of-five series resumes on Friday at Anaheim Stadium.

“We’ve been down before, and guys know how to respond,” leadoff hitter Jacoby Ellsbury said. “Obviously, we would have liked to win this one. They played well tonight. Hopefully we can get them tomorrow.”

Lackey retired the first eight Red Sox batters he faced before Alex Gonzalez singled with two outs in the third inning. Ellsbury followed with a disputed play. He tapped back to the mound for what appeared to be the third out. Thinking the inning was over, the TBS crew went to a commercial break. However, Ellsbury was awarded first base due to catchers’ interference on Jeff Mathis.

However, the potential threat ended when Pedroia lifted a fly ball to right field that was hauled in by Bobby Abreu.

“Lackey went out there and he pitched tremendous,” Ellsbury said. “We don’t take anything for granted. It’s going to be a hard fought series. Hopefully we can come out tomorrow and get that win.”

The third inning was just one of two where the Red Sox had two baserunners.

In the sixth inning, Pedroia singled and Victor Martinez walked with two outs. But Kevin Youkilis was retired on a ground ball.

The Red Sox did have their share of deep counts. Even in the first inning, when they were retired in order, they induced 21 pitches out of Lackey, who exited after throwing 114.

“I thought he did a tremendous job when he needed that big pitch,” Ellsbury said. “Guys were battling. When he needed that big pitch, he made it. He really didn’t give us too much to hit. Hats off to him.”

Jason Bay led off the fifth inning with a single, and it was the only time all night the Red Sox’s leadoff man reached. However, Mike Lowell bounced into a 6-4-3 double play, and Lackey was out of a potential jam.

No Red Sox runner advanced beyond second base.

The way Lackey was in command had Bay saying it wasn’t so much a night of missed chances as much as an opposing starter limiting opportunities.

“We are a pretty good offensive team,” Bay said. “Lackey shut us down with four singles. Four singles and three errors [in the field] isn’t going win too many ballgames. You tip your hat a little bit. I think we can be better.

“He commanded the strike zone. We ran his pitch count up a little bit early, but after that he settled down a little bit. We really didn’t get much. It wasn’t like a game of missed opportunities. We didn’t have many. It was one of those cases where he was better than we were tonight.”