‘What did I learn as a Lion? How to drink’

Joe Marler and midweek XV in New Zealand played hard and drank harder, he tells Daniel Schofield

In an era where the twin forces of professionalism and commercialism are eroding many of rugby’s engaging traditions, it is refreshing to learn, via Harlequins and England prop Joe Marler, that the Lions midweek team still know how to raise a small slice of hell.

Players returning from a Lions tour tend to extol the quality of their team-mates and opposition, an experience which they invariably say has made them a better player. As is his wont, Marler does not engage with such platitudes. Did it make him a better player, he is asked? “I wouldn’t say that,” he replies. What did he learn instead? “How to drink,” is the short, direct answer.

“Rory Best is the one to blame for that,” Marler continues. “He is the one to blame for every time I spoke to my wife on FaceTime she said ‘are you p----d again?’ And I was ‘of course not’, so that is probably the biggest thing I learnt on that tour.

“It was a different tour particularly for the midweek ‘veg’ as we were labelled, but it was really enjoyable. It was more like an old-school sort of tour basically. I didn’t expect it – I thought those days are kind of gone now. Everything is ultra professional, isn’t it?

“More and more guys are coming through like the academy boys and you are going out on a social and there is no one drinking, which is completely fine, that is their gig and that is the way I thought the game was going, but obviously not on a Lions tour. I missed the proper old school a little, I am not that old, but it was very enjoyable to do that sort of thing.”

Marler is quick to emphasise that