My front-row seat to discover just what it means to be a Lion
As part of a new Telegraph podcast, I had the privilege of watching past Test victories with four legends of game. Their pride and intensity shone through
Sir Ian Mcgeechan coached the games all over again. Will Greenwood relived moments of creativity. Brian Moore fixed his eyes on the conflict zones. They watched classic Lions victories from start to finish and felt the unmatchable pride return. Dewi Morris was with us, too, to explain why the Lions is a higher calling than even a place in a national XV. If an England jersey makes someone England’s best, the Lions shirt comes after another level of sifting.
Victorious Lions from old tours will watch the great wins with extraordinary intensity. In front of the screen, they want the feelings they had to be passed down to Warren Gatland’s men in the first Test against New Zealand in Auckland on Saturday.
The reason for us being together was that today we launch a three-part podcast series called The Telegraph’s Lions Rugby Reunion, built around historic individual wins but also seeking to explain how the Lions overcome such daunting odds (with an eye on Saturday’s mammoth challenge).
The three matches chosen were the second Test against Australia in 1989, the second against New Zealand in 1993 and the first against South Africa four years later.
Mcgeechan, Moore, Greenwood and Morris enter a kind of happy trance as they watch the full 80 minutes, joshing about post-match festivities but also re-examining the game in forensic detail. My favourite anecdote was Rory Underwood touching down for a try in 1993, Kiwis throwing full cans of beer at Moore, who cracked one open to take a glug. At the next scrum, Sean Fitzpatrick, the great All Black captain, exclaims: “Urrgh, who’s been drinking?”
The hours spent in an underground recording studio raised my own understanding of what being a Lion means, and why so many players objected to last week’s late call-ups, which were based more on geography than merit. The bond among Lions is that nobody should get to wear that crimson jersey unless they have won their struggle against the best in that position.
There will be a few more sparks to come on future tours as tradition rubs up against modern pragmatism.
But as the current generation bear down on opponents with a 93.33 per cent win ratio since the 2011 World Cup, the mind turns to the hardest wins to achieve in sport, the greatest accomplishments, relative to the odds stacked against the victors.
In New Zealand, the Lions are confronting not only the most dominant side in team sport, but the will of two rugby-fixated islands, a nation’s culture, the No1 means of expression in a country where the World Cup trophy has returned to potentially permanent residence.
In team sports, an outstanding feat of the past 20 years was Germany becoming the first European nation to win a football World Cup in South America – in Brazil in 2014 – including victories over Portugal, France, Brazil (7-1) and Argentina. In cricket, England winning an Ashes series in Australia often assumes heroic proportions, given the unfavourable conditions and hostility of the locals. In golf, Europe’s Ryder Cup team mastered the art of subduing America’s golf empire with superior organisation and a ‘boot room’ ethos. The ‘Miracle of Medinah’ in
2012 was the beacon of those conquests. And yet: join some illustrious Lions while they watch a landmark match again and you comprehend the ‘pinnacle’ mantra that comes with players from four mutually hostile nations being thrown together and flown to New Zealand, Australia or South Africa to face hosts who see them as symbols of colonial arrogance (even the Irish are dragged into this), northern-hemisphere presumption, European money. Hosts who have everything in their favour, by virtue of home advantage. This disparate band turn up with their cuddly Lion, convoy of sponsors and fat book of myths and legends to grapple with, in double-