The greatest sporting events are those that come around sparingly. The football World Cup, the Olympic Games, the rugby World Cup, an away Ashes series. With these, the stakes are so much higher for fans and players alike when the next chance to win may be four years away.
The tours of the British and Irish Lions are, if anything, even more sparing. Yes, they work to the same four-year cycle, but it’s 12 years if you’re a Kiwi, a Wallaby or a Springbok. For most of these, a Lions tour really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Players from Britain and Ireland have a chance every four years, but it’s extra special for them too. Being selected for the tour and then picked for the matchday XV means that you are officially one of the best of the best from the four home countries. You’ll be playing alongside men who have been your bitter and fierce rivals for years, and will be carried along by extraordinary support from tens of thousands of travelling fans. A Lions tour really is the pinnacle for most rugby players.
Lions tours have produced so many memorable moments that choosing the very best is a tough task. I hope you find this selection agreeable and, even if not, that it brings back some happy and vivid memories from years gone by.
6. Warburton’s intervention – Third test, Auckland 2017
For some Lions fans, the drawn series against the All Blacks in 2017 was something of an anticlimax. Having been comprehensively outplayed in the first test, the Lions had clawed their way back into the series and came to the third and final test in sight of the rarest of the rare – a series win in New Zealand. To ‘only’ draw the final test and, with that, the series, seemed like an opportunity lost. Only it wasn’t. The Lions came extremely close to losing the match and the series, and it may only have been the intervention of Lions captain, Sam Warburton, that saved the day.
Warburton was one of those guys born to be a leader. Captain of Wales at U-18, U-19 and U-20 levels, he was made captain of his national side at just 22 years old, with only the great Gareth Edwards having achieved the honour sooner. In 2013, still only 24, he became the youngest captain of the British and Irish Lions for their tour to Australia, and four years later, he was the obvious choice to lead the 2017 tour to New Zealand.
Warburton had had to miss the final test on the 2013 tour due to a hamstring injury, so felt he had “unfinished business”. The final test of 2017 was his chance to finish the business. The match was extremely tight. The All Blacks scored two tries, but four penalties for the Lions meant the game entered the final quarter all square at 12-12. A Beauden Barrett penalty for the home side was squared up by a late penalty from the Lions’ Owen Farrell and with three minutes remaining on the clock a draw seemed inevitable.
That was until the All Blacks restart. They lofted the ball into the Lions half where full-back Liam Williams leapt but failed to collect in the air, knocking the ball slightly forward. Lions replacement hooker, Ken Owens, tracking back just in front of Williams, made to catch the ball before dropping it like a hot potato. Owens knew he was in front of Williams, and the French referee, Romain Poite, signalled immediately for a penalty for offside. As the stadium erupted, Warburton remained cool and politely encouraged Poite to reconsider. Poite consulted with his assistants and revised his decision from penalty to scrum – he had judged Owen’s offside to be accidental.
Another captain might have blundered in or been overly aggressive. Warburton was respectful and measured. Poite is too good a referee to be unduly influenced, but Warburton’s measured approach could not have hurt. The Lions drew the match and tied the series – still a superb achievement in New Zealand.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/40543506
5. George North announces himself – First test, Brisbane 2013
George North was just 18 when he was selected to represent Wales in 2010. A measure of how prodigious his talent was is that he was picked for what was then the strongest team in the Six Nations, then proved to be a significant factor in Wales winning two successive Six Nations campaigns, including the Grand Slam in 2012. By 2013, and still only 21, North was a pretty unanimous choice not only for the Lions squad but also for the starting line-up in the tests. (NB. It’s worth remembering that compared to the 2025 series in which only two Welshmen made the squad, in 2013 EIGHT Welshmen were picked for the starting XV in the first test.)
Lined up against North was the Australian superstar wing Israel Folau, himself only 24. A recent convert from rugby league, Folau was a similar size and speed to North and was making his debut in a Wallaby shirt. It was Folau who made the first impact, backing up a superb run by scrum-half Will Genia to finish a length-of-the-pitch try in the corner.
North, though, was not to be outshone. On 25 minutes the ball was hoisted high into the Lions half by Aussie fly-half Berrick Barnes. North caught the ball just behind his own 10-metre line. A shuffle of the feet and he had evaded the first chasing Aussie flanker. Then an acceleration past James O’Connor’s attempted ankle tap and a poorly placed Folau. The field opened up but North still had plenty work to do. Appearing to apply the afterburners, he skipped past a despairing dive from Barnes before rounding Genia on the outside to finish off a stunning solo try. Perhaps it was unnecessary for him to goad Genia as he passed him, but sometimes you can forgive the audacity of youth.
The game was too young for North’s try to be the decisive action, in fact it was a game that could easily have gone to the Wallabies. Folau, who added a second superb try to his first, arguably had more impact on the game than North. But, once Australia’s Kurtley Beale missed a very gettable penalty in the closing moments, the result went the way of the Lions. The 21-year-old Welshman would go on to create other moments of magic in the series, but his debut Lions try was unforgettable.
4. Campese’s gift – Third Test, Sydney 1989
If there’s one thing that a Lions team really does not want on tour, it’s a defeat in first test of a series. Only once have the Lions come back from a 0-1 deficit. That time was in 1989 in Australia, and one of the principal contributors to their comeback was one of the best rugby players in the world (and also one of the most arrogant), Wallaby wing David Campese.
The tour was the first since 1899 to come exclusively to Australia. Australian rugby union had not been considered strong enough to host a Lions tour (it is a minority sport in the country after Aussie rules, rugby league and cricket) so the country had been visited only as part of a wider tour to New Zealand. The success, though, of the 1984 Wallabies, who completed an unprecedented grand slam on a tour of the four home nations, signalled that the team and the country were ready.
The Wallabies certainly started the series with a bang. A strong, aggressive performance by their forwards in the first test delivered a solid platform for the excellent half back partnership of Nick Farr-Jones and Michael Lynagh, and Australia dominated pretty much every aspect of the game. The final tally was four tries to nil and a thumping scoreline of 30 points to 12.
The second test in Brisbane saw some important changes made to the Lions team. Into the forwards came England’s Mike Teague and Wade Dooley, two tough-as-teak operators, and into the backs came Rob Andrew, Jeremy Guscott and Scott Hastings. The Lions came out fighting, literally (the match was christened ‘The Battle of Ballymore’ by the Aussie press), in an attempt to wrestle back the advantage that the Aussie pack had gained a week earlier. They certainly succeeded in evening up the score, but the match was still incredibly tight and was decided in the Lions favour only with two tries in the final five minutes.
So, onto Sydney for the third test and series decider. By now the Lions forwards had warmed to the task and scented blood. They dominated their hosts, but the Lions struggled to convert possession and pressure into points. By half time they should have been well ahead, but the scores were tied at 9-9. The critical moment came six minutes into the second half. Lions fly half Rob Andrew badly fluffed a drop goal attempt and the ball was collected easily just behind his goal line by winger David Campese. Campese could, and should, have touched down for a 22-metre drop out but, instead and inexplicably, he ran the ball out of his goal area before lobbing a hospital pass to his full back, Greg Martin. Martin, totally unprepared for the pass, dropped the ball over his line where Lions wing, Ieuan Evans, lurking without any realistic expectation, pounced greedily upon it to claim a try. An enraged Australian TV commentator declared “you don’t wear a green and gold jersey to pull out that sort of mickey mouse rugby!”.
It was to be the decisive score of the match. Although the Aussies never stopped battling, and brought the score back to only a one-point game (18-19) with time still on the clock, the Lions were able to hold and clinch the tightest of series wins.
Campese met with a barrage of criticism for his error, but was largely unrepentant. He was a player who tried to make things happen and his view was that sometimes this can rebound on you. It certainly didn’t affect his rugby career. He went on to be voted player of the tournament in Australia’s victorious rugby world cup campaign of 1991, to be the first Wallaby to play 100 times for the country and was the world’s leading international try scorer by the time he hung up his boots. For all his successes, though, he never won a series against the Lions.
https://www.lionsrugby.com/en/news/the-lions-down-under-1989
3. “This is your Everest” – First Test, Newlands 1997
Tours to South Africa are extraordinarily tough. Rugby is the symbol of South African national price, and the Springboks are typically big and strong, aggressive in defence and attack and prepared to go to any lengths, legal or otherwise, to win. As the final Lions tour of the 20th century approached, the tourists could look back on a hundred-year period in which they had played nine series and won only one (the epic series of 1974) having lost seven.
The touring side was built on a rump of players from England, by some distance the best home country in that year’s Five Nations. They were captained by Martin Johnson, not yet England captain but already on his way to all-time-great status, and coached by two Scots, both former Lions, Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer.
It was Telfer who was to provide one of the most memorable moments from this or indeed any tour, a moment that might have gone unnoticed had it not been for the behind-the-scenes documentary, ‘Living with Lions’. Granted unprecedented access to the training ground and changing room, the filmmakers were able to capture a truly inspirational speech by the Scotsman.
The 1997 tour saw eight matches to be navigated before the start of the test series. The Lions played well, winning seven out of eight games against the provinces, but some doubts remained about the strength and depth of their forwards. When they arrive at Newlands, Cape Town for the first test it was the job of Telfer, the forwards coach, to prepare them for battle. His speech is worth listening to in full, but this excerpt captures the essence of it.
“The easy bit has passed. Selection for the Test team is the easy bit. You have an awesome responsibility on the eight individual forwards’ shoulders. An awesome responsibility. This is your Everest, boys. Very few ever get a chance in rugby terms to get for the top of Everest. You have the chance today. Being picked is the easy bit. To win for the Lions in a Test match is the ultimate, but you’ll not do it unless you put your bodies on the line, every one jack of you for 80 minutes. Defeat doesn’t worry me. I’ve had it often and so have you. It’s performance that matters. If you put in the performance, you’ll get what you deserve. No luck attached to it.
You are privileged. You are the chosen few. Many are considered but few are chosen. They don’t think f*** all of us. Nothing. We’re here just to make up the f***ing numbers. No one’s going to do it for you. You have to find your own solace — your own drive, your ambition, your own inner strength, because the moment’s arrived for the greatest game of your f***ing life.”
We’ll never know the extent to which Telfer’s passionate oratory did or didn’t made the difference – representing the Lions anyway creates a huge amount of self-motivation – but what we did see was a fiercely determined effort from the forwards. They didn’t dominate, but they did compete against a South African pack built behind the immovable man-mountain prop, Os Du Randt. And the game was extremely close with the Springboks ahead for most of it. It turned, however, on a moment of magic in the 72nd minute, a moment that could itself easily rank as one of the greatest Lions moments.
The Lions trailed 16-15, knowing that a single score would see them into the lead. They won a scrum just outside the South African 22-metre line. The scrum held firm and wheeled slightly to the right. Scrum half Matt Dawson, only in the team only because of an injury to first-choice Rob Howley, picked up and took off down the blind side towards the touchline. With no room to squeeze through, he made to pass the ball back inside to his forwards. This move, though, was a huge dummy that utterly flummoxed the two closest South African defenders, stopping them dead in their tracks. It created a gap that Dawson sprinted through for the most glorious of tries. A second try, five minutes later, for Scotsman Alan Tait, put the icing on the cake for a 25-16 opening victory.
The second test delivered another magic moment for the Lions. The contest was again super tight with the Lions recovering from a 6-point deficit to tie the score at 15-15 with minutes remaining. The Lions forwards had progressed to within five or so metres of the try line when a ruck formed. Dawson, again playing his part, spotted centre Jeremy Guscott standing a little back from the attacking line, and delivered a perfect pass to his England teammate. Guscott, ever the star, landed an unlikely but perfect drop goal to take the Lions to a second and decisive win.
McGeechan and Telfer had led their Lions to only their second series victory in South Africa in a century. Their leadership and inspiration had been key to giving the Lions the little extra that made all the difference.
https://www.lionsrugby.com/en/news/feature-the-story-of-everest
https://www.lionsrugby.com/en/news/on-this-day-dawson-sets-1997-lions-up-for-series-victory
2. The King delivers a masterclass – Third Test, Wellington 1971
The holy grail for the British and Irish Lions is a series win against the All Blacks. Since they first toured New Zealand in 1904, there has only been one such victory, in 1971, when what may be the greatest-ever Lions team visited the country.
The Lions team was built around the then-dominant Wales team. They supplied 14 (including uncapped flanker Derek Quinnell) of the 33-man squad and were well-supported by greats from the other home countries including Willie-John McBride and Mike Gibson of Ireland, Ian ‘Mighty Mouse’ McLauchlan of Scotland and David Duckham of England.
The tour got off to a poor start in Australia with a defeat to state side Queensland. The home coach described the team as the worst Lions ever, but this was typical Australian bravado. There was to be only one further defeat for the Lions in their remaining 25 matches.
The first test against the All Blacks, in Dunedin, was a somewhat turgid affair, but the Lions prevailed 9-3 with a try and two penalties versus just one penalty. Going into the second test, the Lions, after 15 straight wins on tour, were perhaps a little over-confident, and they lost convincingly by 22-12, conceding five tries to two of their own. With three weeks between tests, though, they had time to re-group, and they arrived in Wellington for the third test having rebuilt their confidence with four solid wins against the provinces.
The star of the 1971 team was 26-year-old fly half, Barry John of Cardiff and Wales. John was a beautifully balanced runner who could ghost past opposition defenders, could defend well and was a superb kicker from both feet as well as from the ground. A great reader of the game, John seemed to have more time than anyone around him and had a gift for seeing space where none appeared to exist. He had played well in the first two tests but in the third he really came into his own. He contributed a try, a drop goal and two conversions, and his tactical kicking consistently put the All Blacks on the defensive. His points plus another try, from his Welsh teammate Gerald Davies, saw the Lions to a superb 13-3 victory.
There was still, though, more for the Lions to do as the 1971 series comprised four tests, not three like today. A win for New Zealand in the final test, at fortress Eden Park in Auckland, would see the series tied and the Lions denied their first-ever series victory. It was another terribly close match, in which the decisive score was that rarest of rarities, a drop goal by Welsh full-back JPR Williams. JPR had never scored a drop goal in internationals (and never did so again) but attempted a long-range one here with the match tied at 11-11. It sailed over the posts and, despite their best efforts, the All Blacks could only find one more score, a penalty, so the game finished in a draw. The Lions had won the series 2-1 with this test tied.
Barry John, ‘The King’, who was coolness personified on the pitch, did not much enjoy his fame and celebrity off it. A humble man, he lived in a rugby-mad country where he was treated like a God. He found the pressure too much and retired within a year of his epic Lions tour. He was only 27, but he had secured his legacy in helping the Lions achieve their holy grail. That it has not been achieved since is testament to his brilliance and to the talents and endeavours of his 1971 teammates.
https://www.lionsrugby.com/en/history/year-by-year/the-greatest-ever-tour
https://www.lionsrugby.com/en/news/a-remarkable-achievement
https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/58128404
1. The Battle of Boet Erasmus – Third Test, Port Elizabeth 1974
There is a strong case to be made that the Lions tour to South Africa of 1974 should never have taken place. The apartheid state of South Africa was shunned by nations across the world, and its sports teams were excluded from almost every international competition. In Britain, the labour government under Harold Wilson was utterly opposed to the Lions tour, and much of the British public felt that it should be called off. Despite all of this, it did go ahead, and it produced possibly the greatest ever tour performance by a Lions squad.
The Lions had not won a test series in South Africa since 1896, experiencing 3-0 series whitewashes on each of the two most recent tours, in 1962 and 1968. The squad of 1974, however, arrived with justifiable optimism. Many of the players, including inspirational captain Willie John McBride (on his fifth tour!), had been on the successful 1971 tour to New Zealand and several were at or approaching their peak. The Springboks, meanwhile, had played only one full international in three years (a home defeat to England in 1972). While the home side would undoubtedly be a little ring-rusty, but there was no question that they would be as physical and aggressive as ever, pushing the laws of the game to their limits, and occasionally well beyond.
The Lions were prepared for this and determined not to cede supremacy in the physical battle. They decided that if retaliation was needed, they would get it in first. Thus the ’99 call’ was created. It was a policy of ‘one in, all in’. If one Lion got involved in a scuffle, all of his teammates were expected to get stuck in, regardless of where they were on the pitch. The premise was that, if 15 fights were breaking out around him, the referee would be unable to pick out any individual player and penalise them. The call itself was used sparingly, but the principle worked, with the Lions more than holding their own in what was often more of a fight than a rugby match.
The Lions were, of course, not all about aggression. Their back line was perhaps their best ever with the world-class pairing of Gareth Edwards and Phil Bennett at half-back, serial try scorer JJ Williams on the wing and the inestimable JPR Williams at full-back. There were no obvious weaknesses in the team.
After breezing through their warm up games, the first two tests (of four) were won fairly comfortably by the Lions, who managed to prevent the Springboks scoring a single try. The tourists came to the third test, at Boet Erasmus stadium in Port Elizabeth, knowing that a win or draw would see a series victory secured. They knew that the Springboks would come out hard, and that the contest would be extremely physical. The result was a game that former Wales and Lions flanker, Clem Thomas, described this as “the most violent I have ever witnessed”.
The Springboks, with the series on the line, were relentless from the first whistle, but the Lions defence stood firm. Scuffles broke out sporadically, but the Lions fought as a team. Then just before half time, on a rare foray into the South African 25, Scot Gordon Brown bundled over following a line-out and the tourists went into a 7-3 lead. The second half saw the tourists take control, and with JJ Williams scoring two superb tries, they ran out 26-9 winners for an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series. Willie-John was chaired from the pitch by his teammates.
The game is also remembered for an incident that has probably featured in more after-dinner speeches than any other. Springbok lock Johan de Bruyn lost his glass eye after being punched by Lions try-scorer Gordon Brown. The game was halted while all 30 players and the officials searched for the eye on the ground. Once found, de Bruyn coolly popped it back in its socket and the game continued. Brown, who sadly died at the age of only 53, always joked that de Bruyn had not removed all the grass and that some blades poked out for the remainder of the game.
The Lions should probably have completed a 4-0 clean sweep, but some controversial refereeing decisions (home referees were still employed in the 70s) meant the fourth and final game finished in a 13-13 draw. A 3-0-1 series and an unbeaten tour was still an incredible achievement for ‘the Invincibles’.
https://www.lionsrugby.com/en/history/year-by-year/1974-the-invincibles-win-21-out-of-22