Visiting fan slept on couch of All Blacks star
Rieko Ioane may have put the Lions to the sword with two tries for the All Blacks on Saturday but it has emerged he has been far kinder to a member of the travelling support – by putting him up on his couch for two days earlier in the series.
The supporter in question is an Englishman called Alex Edwards, whose accommodation in Auckland fell through the night before the Lions played the Blues on June 7. With nowhere to stay, Edwards accepted an offer from Sandra Wihongi, who helps run the local Ponsonby Rugby Club, to sleep on her sofa before and after the game.
There was just one big surprise in store, however – her sons are Rieko and Akira, both of whom are in the All Blacks squad for the Test series against the Lions.
“I was meant to be staying at Ponsonby in my campervan but when I turned up all the lights were off and the car park was empty,” Edwards told The Daily Telegraph.
“I stuck my head through the door and luckily they were having a committee meeting. Sandra, the club manager, sorts everything out and she said: ‘You can stay in the car park but we have to lock the gates and tell security’. “Then, after five or 10 minutes she said: ‘Sod it, come and stay at ours’. When the two lads walked in, I said: ‘You two are big’ but I didn’t twig who they were. I felt like a bit of a lemon.”