1976 lions tour

The Legendary (and Violent) 1974 British & Irish Lions Tour of South Africa

• March 25, 2020
• Ultimate Rugby

The 70s: a decade largely remembered for questionable hairstyles, economic uncertainty, social upheaval and the Bee Gees. In rugby terms, however, it was the stage of one of the most controversial sporting series in history; the 1974 Lions tour to South Africa.

Under the apartheid regime, South Africa had gradually cultivated a reputation for itself as an international pariah.

Many of the British public and their leaders were fundamentally opposed to the tour going ahead, though it did materialise, albeit under fiery circumstances.

The Lions were captained by the legendary Willie-John McBride and boasted other revered names among their ranks such as Gareth Edwards, JPR Williams, Phil Bennett, Ian McGeechan, Fergus Slattery and JJ Williams.

McBride was well aware of the daunting task ahead of the team – the Springboks had never lost a series on home soil before – and it was imperative to him that they were all on the same page when he sat his players down before they departed.

“I said, ‘I’m going to South Africa...I have one objective: to win the series...it’s nothing to do with politics, as far as I’m concerned, nothing. If anybody has any doubt about going on this tour, the door is open. Please leave now. Don’t come to me in a week, don’t come to me tomorrow, don’t come to me in three weeks, because you’re no use to this team if you have the slightest doubt and you’re certainly no use to me,’” McBride recalls, “Nobody moved. And I said, ‘Okay, we now are on the road.’”  

The first significant game of the tour was against Eastern Province- then tough customers in the South African provincial scene – who were led by the Springbok captain, Hannes Marais.

With the tensions electric off the field, it was inevitable that violence would rear its head on it, and the Lions were prepared.

At the shout of McBride’s famous “99” call, the men in red swarmed with steely aggression and clenched fists, administering brutal  beatings on any opposition player who dared antagonise one of their own. The Lions had made a statement, in no uncertain terms, that their days of being bullied by the burly Afrikaners were over and the spirit of the tour was forged.

Lions  28 – 14  Eastern Province.

McBride’s charges marched on to Newlands to take on giants Western Province one week before the first test at the same venue and emerged 17 – 8 victors, as yet unbeaten on the tour.

The Springboks took on their rivals at a wet and muddy Newlands on the 8 th of June and were defeated 12-3, the first Lions victory at that venue since 1938.

“It [the victory] gave everybody that tremendous feeling that we were dominant and we were believing in ourselves.” said McBride.

The road to the second test saw the Lions despatch the Southern Universities XV (26-4), Transvaal (23-15) and Rhodesia (42-6) before they took the field in Pretoria.

The team bus pulled up to Loftus Versveld with its occupants in full song – belting out the rousing lyrics of Flower Of Scotland and revelling in a spirit of confidence which manifested on the field of play.

“When we got off that bus and into the dressing room, we knew that something special was going to happen that day.” former Lions lock Gordon Brown recounts.

Brown was right, and the Lions were dominant, winning the second test 28-9 in front of a shocked crowd to go up 2-0 in the series.

The 13 th of July 1974 saw the sides clash in the vital third test, again, in Port Elizabeth.

The Springboks, now desperate for victory blasted out of the tunnel onto the field like green bullets from a gun, a tongue-lashing from the Minister of Sport in the dressing room still ringing in their ears. What transpired was the most brutal, violent game of the tour, “Fitting more for the boxing ring,” a commentator quipped. At the final whistle the players left the blood-stained pitch with the scoreboard reading 26-9 in the Lion’s favour and McBride’s men were forever etched in history.

The fourth and final test ended in a 13-13 draw, but the writing was already on the wall; that the Springboks had been out-played and out-fought, suffering their first ever home series defeat to a Lions team that would go down as one of the greatest in the tradition.

The Lions returned home unbeaten, having played 22 games, winning 21 and drawing 1, scarring the pride of the Springbok jersey.

As we look towards the tour of 2021, the mouth waters at the prospect of the now world champion South Africans taking on the best of Britain and Ireland in another clash of physicality and flair.

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Tales of the tours: 1977 - Lions pounced - but this series was the one that got away

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Warren Gatland's British & Irish Lions are seeking just their second series win on New Zealand soil in the 129-year history of clashes between touring sides and New Zealand rugby finest.

As excitement grows for the three-test series - the country's most anticipated sporting event since the 2011 Rugby World Cup - the New Zealand Herald looks back at the Lions' rich history of touring New Zealand.

Today: 1977

But for some crucial handling eras, the Lions could easily have secured back-to-back series wins over the All Blacks when they returned to our shores in 1977.

History shows the All Blacks won the series 3-1; the Lions lost the first test 16-12, won the second test 13-9, then lost the third test 19-7 and the final test at Eden Park 10-9.

The first and fourth tests are among defeats that Lions fans still look back on in frustration.

"I think the Lions in 1977 had the wood on the All Blacks, but for a few tiny moments they should have at least drawn, if not won, that series," New Zealand Rugby Museum director Stephen Berg said.

"I know the Lions look back on that series as one that got away.

"In the final test they were all over the All Black forwards and were creaming them. But a few mishandled balls and the All Blacks pounced."

The Lions looked set to win the final test, leading 9-6 in the dying moments, before All Black No 8 Lawrie Knight snared a loose ball near the Lions' 22m and crossed for the winning try.

Berg said winning the test series was a must for many All Black fans going into the tour.

The All Blacks had been undergoing a mass rebuilding phase since the 1971 series loss to the Lions. Morale was even lower after the All Blacks lost the 1976 test series against the Springboks in South Africa.

"For a few years the All Black results hadn't been great, but by 1977 we were starting to get pretty desperate that we would get some good results," he said.

Rugby historian Clive Akers said the All Blacks - and their fans - were further pushed towards snaring a series win after the pain of losing in 1971 to the tourists.

"It was crucial that we defeated the Lions," he said. "It was very important to get the All Blacks back into a winning position."

Akers said the Lions were helped in the build-up to the test series both by crucial pre-tour decisions, including a leadership structure which wasn't as strong as it had been in 1971, and striking a run of bad weather in the build-up provincial games.

One of the non-test defeats was to the New Zealand Universities team, who triumphed 21-9 at Lancaster Park.

"It would have been history-making for the Scarfies," Akers said.

"They had a game against the Springboks in 1965 and got hammered by 50 points. So to beat the Lions in 1977 was outstanding. They had some great players in that team."

Further salt was rubbed into the Lions' wounds on their way home to the UK, with the side losing 25-21 to Fiji in Suva.

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• Thanks to the New Zealand Rugby Museum, its director Stephen Berg and rugby historian Clive Akers

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The class of ’71

With this Sunday marking the 40th anniversary of the Lions' first-Test win over the All Blacks in 1971, we take a look at the 15 players who started the 9-3 win in Christchurch asking what their Lions careers entailed and what path they have taken since that famous triumph. [more]

With this Sunday marking the 40th anniversary of the Lions’ first-Test win over the All Blacks in 1971, we take a look at the 15 players who started the 9-3 win in Christchurch asking what their Lions careers entailed and what path they have taken since that famous triumph.

In part one we look at a star-studded backline that included an incredible six Welshmen.

Only Ireland’s Mike Gibson broke the Welsh stranglehold in a back division widely regarded as the greatest in Lions’ history.

All brought their own unique skills to the party and all have followed different paths since calling time on their international careers.

JPR Williams

JPR featured in all four Tests on the historic 1971 tour, repeating the feat on the Lions’ unbeaten South African adventure three years later.

It was his long-range drop goal in the final international against the All Blacks that sealed series victory in New Zealand four decades ago.

The former Bridgend and London Welsh star won a total of 55 caps for Wales, with his stellar international career coming to an end in 1981, 12 years after it had begun.

Following his retirement from international rugby, JPR continued to play the sport well into his fifties, regularly turning out for Bridgend and then Tondu thirds before finally hanging up his boots in 2003.

A passionate singer with the Bridgend Tabernacle Choir, he was awarded an MBE for services to rugby in 1977 and was one of the first inductees into the International Rugby Hall Fame 20 years later.

Outside of rugby, JPR was a renowned orthopaedic surgeon, qualifying as a doctor in 1973 and becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1980. He retired from the National Health Service in 2004.

Gerald Davies

Like his Welsh team-mate JPR, Davies was a starter in all four Tests in New Zealand.

A double try scorer in the second-Test defeat to the All Blacks, Davies crossed the line four times when the Lions beat Hawkes Bay a week later. He went on to score another important try in the third-Test victory in Wellington as the Lions took an unassailable 2-1 series lead.

Davies turned down the chance to tour South Africa with the Lions in 1974 but carried on playing international rugby until 1978, finishing with a total of 46 Welsh caps.

After retirement, the former Loughborough Colleges, Cambridge University, Llanelli, Cardiff and London Welsh centre turned wing moved into journalism, earning an impressive reputation as a rugby writer for The Times newspaper.

He was awarded a CBE in 2002 for his work as chairman of the Wales Youth Agency and he holds Honory Fellowships at the University of Wales Lampeter, the University of Wales Aberystwyth and Cardiff University, as well as being awarded an honorary degree from Loughborough University for services to sport and journalism.

Davies’ relationship with the Lions continues to this day, with the now 66-year-old currently serving as Lions chairman for the 2013 tour to Australia having acted as tour manager when Britain and Ireland’s elite travelled to South Africa in 2009.

Gerald Davies is now chairman of the Lions

John Dawes (captain)

Having led Wales to a Grand Slam just months earlier, Dawes became the first man to guide the Lions to a series success in the Land of the Long White Cloud.

An ever-present in the Test side on his solitary Lions adventure, Dawes retired from international rugby straight after the tour but went on to captain the Barbarians to victory over the All Blacks in their famous clash in Cardiff two years later.

The former Newbridge and London Welsh star stayed heavily involved in the sport by moving into coaching. Dawes coached his country from 1974 to ’79, with Wales suffering just three defeats in Home Internationals in that time. During his hugely successful spell as coach, Wales won Grand Slams in 1976 and ‘78 and four successive Triple Crowns between ’76 and ’79.

Dawes continued his coaching career with a return to New Zealand with the Lions in 1977 but the former skipper was unable to match the achievements of the ’71 tour as his men lost the four-match series 3-1.

Awarded an OBE for services to sport in 1972, Dawes has acted as president of London Welsh and as the Welsh Rugby Union’s coaching organiser between 1980 and 1990.

Mike Gibson

Another ever-present during the 1971 series, Mike Gibson toured an incredible five times with the Lions, starting in 1966 and making his last Lions appearance in 1977.

Gibson is currently third on the list of all-time Test appearances for the Lions having started 11 internationals and come on once as a replacement in his first three tours.

Only the legendary Willie John McBride has played in more Test and non-Test matches for the Lions, with Gibson just two games off the top of the tree with an incredible 66.

Now 68 years of age, Gibson scored 22 tries, five conversions, five drop goals and eight penalties for the Lions and at one stage held the world record for Test caps with his 69 appearances for Ireland and 12 for the Lions giving him a combined total of 81.

Gibson’s Ireland career came to an end against Australia in 1979 at the age of 36 but he continued playing club rugby until the age of 42.

An original inductee into the International Hall of Fame, Gibson is also an MBE.

Outside of rugby, Gibson studied law at university and is a senior partner in a firm of solicitors in Belfast. He still lives in Northern Ireland’s capital city and is now one of Ulster’s top hockey umpires after acting on his daughter’s interest in that sport.

Mike Gibson (centre) forged a successful career as a solicitor

Unlike the other six members of the Lions backline for the first Test, Bevan did not appear in the following three internationals in 1971.

The 9-3 triumph in Christchurch proved to be Bevan’s solitary Test appearance for the Lions, although it wasn’t his last cap for a British representative side.

The former Cardiff wing switched to Rugby League in 1973 for a then huge signing-on fee of £12,000 and went on to enjoy a memorable and prolonged career in the 13-a-side version of the sport.

Nicknamed The Ox, Bevan scored 201 tries in 332 games for Warrington and won six rugby league caps for Great Britain.

His testimonial match took place in 1983 and Bevan then moved into teaching. He has since taught at Ferndale Boys School, Culcheth High School, English Martyrs School and Arnold School in Blackpool.

Bevan also worked as director of coaching at the Welsh Rugby Union, helping lead Wales Under 19s to the final of the Junior World Cup in 1999.

He left that post in 2000 to take up a new teaching role at Welsh public school Monmouth where he still works. Bevan overseas all rugby coaching at the school and is in charge of the first XV.

Christened The King by the New Zealand press, Barry John was at the heart of the Lions’ success story in 1971. John literally ran the All Blacks ragged with his incredible skill set on his second Lions adventure.

And while it was his running game and famous sidestep for which he was perhaps best known, it was his kicking game that proved so influential Down Under, especially in the first Test. John bombarded All Blacks full back Fergie McCormick in Chjristchurch, moving him all over the park and ensuring the unlucky No15 never played for the All Blacks again.

As well as returning home with a new nickname, John left New Zealand with the record for the most points scored in a single Lions tour having totaled 191 in 17 games.

John surprisingly called time on his rugby career just a year after the Lions’ historic triumph. The Llanelli and then Cardiff playmaker cited media attention as the main reason for hanging up his boots at the age of just 27.

He was an inaugural inductee into the International Rugby Hall of Fame in 1997 and was also inducted into the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame two years later.

John is currently a columnist for local media in Wales and is a regular figure in the press box at Welsh Tests in Cardiff.

Barry John is now a columnist in the Welsh media

Gareth Edwards

Seen by many as the most complete player the game has ever produced, Gareth Edwards was at the heart of all things good about the class of ‘71. Edwards played 16 times on his second Lions tour with his place in the No9 shirt never in doubt.

The Cardiff scrum-half went on to star for the Lions once more in 1974, again playing in all four Tests against the Springboks.

Edwards turned down the chance to tour New Zealand with the Lions in 1977 in order to spend more time with his family and on his business interests meaning his Lions career ended with a total of 39 appearances, 10 of which were Tests.

Edwards tasted glory against the All Blacks once more in 1973, however, when he scored arguably the greatest try of all time in the Barbarians’ 23-11 triumph in the Welsh capital.

Named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1974, Edwards received an MBE a year later and was then made a CBE in 2007.

His international career came to an end in fine style in 1978 as Wales claimed a third successive Triple Crown and another Grand Slam. Edwards won a total of three Grand Slams, five Triple Crowns, five outright Five Nations Championship titles and shared two more in a truly incredible Wales career.

After his retirement, Edwards was a team captain on A Question of Sport from 1978 until 1982 and was another Lion among the first batch of International Rugby Hall of Fame inductees in ‘97.

He immediately moved into co-commentary with the BBC (a role he would hold for nine years) making his debut when Wales took on the All Blacks in the November after his retirement. A native Welsh speaker, Edwards still commentates on rugby on both S4C and the BBC.

Having previously written for the News of the World in the early years after his retirement, Edwards remains a columnist for local media.

He has developed a large number of business interests, including the role of director of a Mercedes dealership and chairman of a subsidiary arm of Welsh Water.

Edwards has also achieved success as an angler. He set a British record when he caught a pike weighing 45lb 6oz, a record he held for two years.

An HSBC ambassador for the 2009 Lions tour to South Africa, Edwards has long been on the Board of Cardiff RFC and the Blues.

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Rugby Union

Lions tour 1974

The Lions enjoyed their best-ever tour as they returned from South Africa unbeaten.

Sunday 21 April 2013 13:18, UK

The most successful Lions team in history travelled to South Africa for a bruising series but ran out victors.

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Injuries, intolerable hope and the 1977 Lions tour of New Zealand

• Huw Richards Close • FT's rugby writer from 1995 to 2009 • Also writes for the International Herald Tribune and the Sunday Herald

Measured purely by results the 1977 British & Irish Lions were among the most successful visitors to New Zealand, winning one Test out of four and coming within minutes of sharing the series.

But it certainly was not seen that way at the time. Few if any Lions teams have been quite such a disappointment. Context, as ever, was all. Levels of expectation were defined by their immediate predecessors -- the teams of 1971, which won in New Zealand, and 1974, which stormed undefeated through South Africa.

As team member Ian McGeechan said: "We had to carry a mantle that they did not. We had to come back and try to achieve something for a second time."

Nor was it exactly a vintage period for the All Blacks, with the golden age of the 1960s giving way to a distinctly vincible 1970s -- defeats by the Boks in 1970 and 1976, the Lions in 1971, away to France in 1973 and 1977 and even at home to an England team coming off a miserable Five Nations in 1972.

They could still usually beat Australia, but this was not the achievement it would become from the mid-1980s onwards.

The Lions reflected an era of Welsh domination. Wales had not lost to any of the other home nations since 1975, and would not do until 1980. The three years since the Lions went to South Africa had seen Wales take, in sequence, the championship, a Grand Slam and a Triple Crown.

So John Dawes -- coach of Wales since 1974, and already a celebrated Lions captain -- was a shoo-in as coach. His self-confidence at this stage in his career was such that his All Black counterpart Jack Gleeson was to recall being rendered almost speechless at their first meeting.

Similarly Wales' Phil Bennett was the logical captain. He had played brilliantly at outside-half for the 1974 Lions, led Llanelli to three consecutive Welsh Cups -- then the de facto national championship -- and the Welsh Triple Crown in 1977 had given him an edge over England's Roger Uttley and Scotland's McGeechan, the other captains in the initial touring squad.

Bennett also stood out from the usual run of Lions leaders. While national fortunes ebbed and flowed over the previous 70 years, there was rarely any doubt that the strongest club rugby was played in South Wales. But this was not reflected in the selection of Lions captains.

Both previous Welsh captains, Harding and Dawes, had been London Welsh players, making Bennett the first [and last until Sam Warburton] to be playing his rugby in Wales. Until recently a steelworker, he contrasted sharply with the succession of lawyers, doctors and army officers who had led the Lions.

But it can be argued that the misfortunes of what even team members came to know as the "bad news tour" had begun back in April 1976 when Mervyn Davies, seen as a near certainty to lead the Lions, had his career - and very nearly his life - ended by a stroke during a Welsh Cup semifinal.

Bennett initially intended not to go to New Zealand and admitted in his memoirs: "I should never have accepted the captaincy of the British Lions tour to New Zealand." It was a tour during which, he wrote, "all of my weaknesses as a player and tourist were exposed".

It was a matter of temperament rather than social class. He was never an enthusiastic traveller -- missing his family to the extent that he wrote more than 200 postcards during the trip -- lacked the outgoing personal confidence which is needed to bring a diverse touring team together over a short period and was one to worry about his own form.

Five veterans of 1971, all certain choices, declined the trip -- English back rower Peter Dixon, Irish flanker Fergus Slattery and three Welsh legends in fullback JPR Williams, wing Gerald Davies and scrum-half Gareth Edwards.

Two more serious Test candidates were ruled out before the tour started -- Uttley was unable to recover from a shoulder injury and Welsh lock Geoff Wheel failed medical tests. Yet there were still 16 Welsh players, the highest representation of any country since England in 1930, in the 30-man party.

Dawes later denied national bias in his selections and that the reaction put him off making Pontypool captain Terry Cobner vice-captain with responsibility for the forwards. Criticism of selection was not the last hostility the tourists would face.

Anger at their own team's recent failures made New Zealand fans more aggressively partisan than usual while the local climate delivered an unusually miserable winter with incessant rain.

Hooker Peter Wheeler has ever since entertained after-dinner audiences with memories of weeks where it "rained twice, once for three days and the other for four". And partisan local press coverage extended off-field and culminated in the "Lousy Lovers" headlines of New Zealand Truth, a lubricious tabloid which expired unmourned in 2013.

The unflattering testimony of a groupie who claimed to have bedded four Lions promoted a flood of anxious -- and in those days highly expensive -- phone calls between players and families at home.

Relations were also poor with the travelling British press. Sunday Times writer John Hopkins, whose unusually thoughtful tour account ranged well beyond match reports, described the "protective paranoia" of Dawes, frequently embroiled in verbal disputes with travelling writers, and manager Dod Burrell.

A warning that all might not go well came in the ninth match against New Zealand Universities. Marshalled by fullback Doug Rollerson, a future All Black, the Universities pressurised the tourists into endless errors. The Universities 21-9 win, emulating their defeat of the 1956 Springboks, was the Lions' first loss in 39 matches.

The furious Dawes subjected his squad to a vicious, drawn-out, long remembered "beasting" at their next training session. That it came immediately before the first Test at Wellington, at a predictably wet and windy Athletic Park, was no help. Yet the Lions could, and probably should, have won.

They were struck two first-half blows. A typically opportunistic early try by rugged All Black scrum-half Sid Going was followed by a highly dubious one from prop Brad Johnstone -- later to coach Fiji and Italy -- awarded after the referee had initially appeared to signal an All Black knock-on.

"We out-scrummaged, out-jumped, out-everythinged them, yet we lost the game." Dod Burrell

Yet the Lions led 12-10 from four penalties by Bennett [three] and brilliant Scottish fullback Andy Irvine in the final stages. They then worked an overlap which seemed to promise a certain try, but Welsh flanker Trevor Evans saw Grant Batty, a combative veteran wing wearing a knee brace, intercept his pass to charge 60 metres for the try.

This "12-point try", with a likely Lions lead of 18-10 transformed in seconds into an All Black advantage of 16-12, was how it ended. The three weeks before the second Test saw a transformation.

Until then, Dawes -- in his playing days a centre -- had supervised the forwards in training while Bennett looked after the backs. Wheeler recalled that following the first Test "several of the forwards got together in the bar one evening to discuss what was going wrong with the tour".

The upshot was that Cobner was put in charge of the forwards, co-opted onto the tour committee and became, as Bennett recognised "the unofficial skipper of the side".

There were five changes to the pack for the second Test including the first appearance as a unit by perhaps the finest of all Lions front rows -- Wheeler propped by English giant Fran Cotton and Pontypool legend Graham Price.

Bennett was victimised by vicious late tackles in a brutal second Test at Christchurch, but the Lions forward dominance enabled them to level the series, a Scarlet-tinted victory built on an early 10-0 lead with a try from wing JJ Williams and two Bennett penalties, then holding on for a 13-9 victory.

The Lions went into the third Test at Dunedin supremely confident. Historically accustomed to seeing attacking superiority negated by All Black forward power, how could they now lose when their forwards were so superior?

But Gleeson reacted smartly, strengthening his attacking options by dumping Going for quick-passing veteran Lyn Davis and giving ultra-quick flanker Graeme Mourie his debut.

Majestic veteran flanker Ian Kirkpatrick went over for his 16th try in Tests -- then the all-time All Black record -- in the first minute. The Lions went from bad to worse and Bennett, who had a miserable afternoon, pinpointed this as the match where he and the Lions most missed Gareth Edwards' genius at scrum-half.

John Hopkins recorded: "The traditional roles of New Zealand and British rugby had been reversed. The forward giants at Carisbrook were the men in red and the darting, elusive backs who could exist on less than an equal supply of ball were those of New Zealand."

Bennett and Irish centre David Irwin compounded their problems by missing six kicks at goal, while new All Black fullback Bevan Wilson claimed 15 points in a 19-7 victory.

Cobner and No. 8 Derek Quinnell were injured before the final test, but the Lions forwards still dominated. And they went into the final minutes with a tied series in their grasp -- a try, conversion and penalty from Scotland scrum-half Doug Morgan giving them a 9-6 lead.

Injury time was ticking away when Bennett kicked for touch and missed. All Black centre Bill Osborne's kick into Lions territory was pursued ferociously. Welsh centre Steve Fenwick caught the ball and, under pressure, passed to Wheeler, who was enveloped by the pursuing All Blacks.

The ball spun free and was picked off by All Black flanker Lawrie Knight, who crossed in the corner to give the hosts a 10-9 win and with it the series.

Lions manager Dod Burrell could not believe it: "We out-scrummaged, out-jumped, out-everythinged them, yet we lost the game."

Dawes, of whom the victorious Gleeson -- who died the following year from cancer -- said tellingly that "perhaps John hasn't lost enough", reckoned the All Blacks had been "out-thought, out-fought and outplayed".

Wheeler pointed out that there was nothing lucky about the determination of their pursuit of Osborne's kick ahead and that "in pressure situations they seem to control the ball much better than British players, and in speed of thought and reaction they are just that shade ahead.

"There was little chance of Knight knocking on that ball that bounced up around his knees -- New Zealanders have been taking advantage of that kind of situation for years."

It was, it seems, ever thus. And never more so than in 1977. Other Lions parties -- 1966, 1983 and 2005 come to mind -- have been defeated far more resoundingly.

But this was a disappointment in the spirit of John Cleese's screen headmaster, lamenting that "I can stand the despair, it's the hope that's intolerable".

This Lions team had reason to hope right up to the last minute of their rain-drenched tour. The dashing of that hope left them perhaps the most devastated of all the Lions parties who have lost in New Zealand.

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From The Vaults

In 1888 a British touring team was sent to the antipodean colonies to play rugby; an event that subsequently became a key moment in rugby history, setting a precedent for years to come and beginning one of the great traditions of the sport.

Dubbed the Anglo-Australian tour, the tour is now accepted as the first in the line of British and Irish Lions tours that have gone on to supply so many of rugby's most enduring memories.

1888 Anglo-Australian Tour

The World Rugby Museum is home to a number of items from this tour, including the jersey worn by A.P. 'Alf' Penketh. Of the 54 matches contested against New Zealand and Australia on this tour, Penketh would would play 19 and would even score a try against Canterbury on the 9th May 1888.

Born in 1865, Alf Penketh was a native of the Isle of Man. A seasoned forward, he played for and captained the Douglas Rugby Club before being called upon to represent the British Isles team. Penketh's story is unique as he is the sole Manxman to to play rugby for the British and Irish Lions to this day.

But just how did this 6 foot tall lad from the Isle of Man end up on board the SS Kaikoura from Gravesend to New Zealand in the spring of 1888?

On the 9th of November 1887, a gentleman named Arthur Shrewsbury sent a message from Sydney, Australia, to England that simply read, 'affix'. The recipient was his business partner, Alfred Shaw, who had now been given the green light to start recruiting men for an international rugby tour to Australia and New Zealand.

A talented batsman, Shrewsbury was visiting and partly financing a cricketing tour to Australia at the time. After four such tours he was rumoured to have been struggling financially, and looked to rugby football to bring his bank account back from the brink.

This was not an official rugby venture - the RFU Committee unanimously opposed the tour; however, they did not seek to actively oppose prospective players from joining it. The Committee made a point of reminding players of the rules against professionalism, and indeed followed through with punishing players for accepting payment or gifts whilst on tour, as Halifax forward Jack Clowes soon found out. On the eve of departure, Clowes would be disqualified from playing by the RFU for admitting to receiving £15 for tour kit. Whilst continuing on the tour, Clowes refused to play a single game so as to avoid tarnishing the reputation of his team-mates.

The 1888 Football Annual described the 22 man squad (21 when Clowes is taken off playing duties, then down to 20 when captain Bob Seddon drowned whilst sculling half way through the tour) as 'a fairly good lot…though by no means representative of English football'.

Assembled by agent Henry Turner, many of the players were not seasoned internationals, with only 3 out of the 22 being regular internationals. They were, however, representative of British Isles rugby with players from all four home nations. The team included four Scots, one Welshman, an Irishman, and not to forget Penketh, representing the Isle of Man. These men were considered rugby 'missionaries' of sorts, spreading their passion for the game through the southern hemisphere.

1888 Touring Team

Thirty-five games of rugby were played between April-October 1888 and, in a move that would unthinkable today, the team were also asked to play several Australian rules football matches.

As this was a privately funded tour with no patronage from the RFU, the British team were able to play 19 games of the local code in all, even winning 5 of the matches.

The tourists would have been the first to admit that they did not take to the southern sport well, but these games were less about the sport and more about assisting with the cash flow for the promoters. This was especially necessary during periods of the tour in southern areas of Australia where rugby wasn't well-known or followed.

The British Isles team played 54 matches between the two codes over 23 weeks. Whilst the Australians had the upper hand at their local version of football, only two rugby games were lost and six drawn out of the 35 rugby union games played. 19 of these rugby games were played against side from New Zealand and 16 against sides from Australia.

The success of this first international tour started a tradition that continues to this day!

18 July 2023

Uncapped half backs in Lions tests 1891-1939

30 July 2021

Remembering the Aston brothers and the 1891 Lions

12 July 2021

1971 Lions march on in New Zealand

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Detroit Lions 1976 Schedule & Scores

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The Lions continue to thread around .500, finishing in 3rd place with a mediocre record of 6-8, despite a steady season from QB Greg Landry.

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1976 Detroit Lions Roster & Players

Record: 6-8-0, 3rd in NFC Central Division  ( Schedule and Results )

Coach: Rick Forzano (1-3-0) and Tommy Hudspeth (5-5-0)

Points For: 262 (18.7/g) 16th of 28

Points Against: 220 (15.7/g) 10th of 28

Expected W-L : 8.4-5.6

SRS : 2.77 (13th of 28),  SOS : -0.23

Offensive Coordinator: Ken Shipp

Stadium: Pontiac Silverdome

Principal Owner/Chairman: William Clay Ford Sr.

General Manager: Russ Thomas

Defensive Alignment: 4-3

Training Camp: Oakland University (Rochester, Michigan)

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