The British And Irish Lions - Rugby Union's Impossible Dream

Why the combined Home Unions project deserves to be cherished.

It really shouldn’t work. Every four years, the best rugby union players from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland are brought together for a couple of months to take on one of the sport’s southern hemisphere giants. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa – with nine World Cup wins between them, they are the most formidable of foes. And while it’s one thing for international sides who play together with some regularity to head over the Equator to earn the odd hard-fought win, it’s quite another for a scratch side to do likewise, especially when three of the sides that comprise the British and Irish Lions can’t stand the fourth.

At least, that’s what you might’ve been led to believe. There certainly has been animosity between the Lions’ constituent countries. Former England captain Will Carling had such a miserable time on the New Zealand tour of 1993, he requested he never again be selected for the side.

That 1993 tour – which saw the Lions lose a tight series 2-1 – also revealed that, while fellow countrymen naturally look out for one another, they’re quite happy to call bullshit on one another if it’s for the good of the Lions. So when a number of Scottish players who were unlikely to figure in the test matches started to treat the tour as a holiday, former Scotland captain and current Lions coach Ian McGeechan had no qualms about making his dissatisfaction with said players public knowledge.

“How you think the Scottish contingent has conducted itself?” enquired a gentlemen of the press. “Gavin Hastings has led the side very well,” McGeechan tersely replied, singling out the team’s skipper while condemning the other seven Scottish squad members via his silence.