THE RED LIONS, EPISODE ONE: From adventurers to invincibles; 1950-1974

0:00Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments.

0:37You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S. offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash start now. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

1:18This is the story of the one. As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies, and making sure every order goes out on time. And Grainger helps him stay prepared. From shipping supplies to PPE to hand tools, he counts on Grainger to keep products moving and trucks rolling. So his operation runs smoothly, no matter the shift. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by Grainger. For the ones who get it done.

2:12I don't think I ever took myself to that level again in my career, even winning the World Cup. You realise then this is like a different scale to Wales, this is a different scale to the Ospreys, this is bigger than I've been involved. I think in my heart I knew it was wrong and it troubled me a lot. Second test, half to win in New Zealand and there was just this energy in the stadium which was just like, it felt like something special was going to happen. Welcome to the Red Lions, a special podcast series from the Ruck, tracing 75 years of the British and Irish Lions through the voices of the players and the pages of the Times and Sunday Times.

2:53I'm Alex Lowe. And I'm Will Kelleher. The Lions have been rugby's great adventurers since 1888, but it wasn't until the 1950 tour of New Zealand that they adopted their famous red jersey. Through this series, we'll build a golden thread that links that band of intrepid adventurers, the last to go on tour by boat, with this year's ultra-professional squad of lions who will take on Australia. We've spoken to 12 lions, each of whom played with the man before and after them in the chain. Think of it as a lion's version of the six degrees of separation. These great men passing the jersey down through history.

3:32Each tour has its own character and its own stories, and we will delve into the archive to relive how some of the greatest rugby occasions were reported in the pages of The Times and The Sunday Times. This is the story of the Red Lions.

3:50Episode 1, From Adventurers to Invincibles. Our story begins in 1950, on the first tour after the Second World War. a 30-match trip to New Zealand and Australia with a game in Sri Lanka on the way home. The previous tour had been to South Africa in 1938 with a squad that included rogue hero Blair Paddy Main who had become a founding member of the SAS. That tour was the last of the Blue Lions. On February 12, 1950, the Times heralded a new era. A notable change has been made in the colours to be worn by the team on the field. Instead of dark blue jersey, white short and red stockings, as in the South African tour of 1938, the colours will be in reverse.

4:36That is to say, the jerseys will be red, the shorts white and the stockings dark blue. This change in the arrangement of the colours will meet the wishes of New Zealand who, very understandably, had no desire to shed their own famous all-black jersey in test matches because of the confusion that was bound to arise if their opponents were in dark blue. The oldest living lion was on this tour. Yeah, Mick Lane. We reached out to him via his son and his club, University College Cork, and unfortunately he was a little bit too frail to join us for a chat. As his son Martin said to me on the phone, he doesn't buy too many green bananas nowadays.

5:12But we do have a tale from 1950, although not an especially auspicious one for the Sunday Times. Jackie Carl told the story many years later. He said, We had one journalist with us, a lovely man, D.R. Ghent, who wrote for the Sunday Times. He wasn't really a journalist. He just took up the job when he finished as headmaster at a school. He used to write his column and do a five-minute broadcast once a week. A lovely little man. He used to read poetry to us, very taken with English literature. He found it very lonely, though, as we were away for over six months. He got homesick and returned home after five weeks of the tour.

5:48D.R. Ghent, a Welshman who won five caps for England. Some things never change. The Lions in the 1950s were revered for their style of attacking rugby and they attracted enormous crowds with up to 100 ,000 coming to games in South Africa August 17th, 1950 In 50 years, New Zealand has seen no more successful sporting tour than that which the British Isles rugby team has just completed This is true, though the team lost the Test Games By their attractive play and their friendliness the members of the team won and deserved the greatest measure of favour They were early given the name of Lions from the lion badge they wore, and by the end of the tour they were rugby lions.

6:29By 1955 the Lions were flying, literally. It took them 36 hours to reach Johannesburg from London via Zurich, Rome, Cairo, Khartoum and Nairobi. I remember there were lots of times that we kept waiting on the airport. You know, on the airport. Nobody knew what the reasons were, you know, oh, there's something wrong with the aeroplane, or they were fixing whatever it was. But yes, it took us some time to get there. My name's Bryn Meredi, and it's the 361st Lion to be selected, and I did three tours, 55, 59, and 62. Do you remember anything about that? Because I guess that would have been your first international flight, would it?

7:14I might have thought so, anyway, yes. I was 25 at that time, wouldn't I? Yes, I wouldn't have gone far at the age of 25. He might have had a holiday to Barry Island or somewhere like that. But hardly going around the world, as it were, by aeroplane, as it were. The politics of apartheid would affect many tours of South Africa. The most controversial was in 1980. In 1986, there was no tour. But the Lions did travel in 55, although Meredith nearly didn't. I remember having a letter from the Lions, I suppose, saying that you may be selected, likely it was that you could be selected for the Lions.

8:03And, you know, would you be available if selected? To be on your wildest dreams that you're going to play for your country and do a tour of three months or whatever it was, away from your normal work and that sort of thing. And it's beyond your wildest dreams, actually. And that is fantastic. So, as I said, I wrote a letter to the education authorities and I was teaching in Hertford at that time, St Albans Grantham School, and I wrote and explained this letter that it looked as though I may well be selected for the Lions, would it be possible to have time off? And I had to write a letter back straight away saying no, and that was that.

9:00So I thought, but later on, of course, you've got to win. Well, why? Why? Why? And, of course, this was a tour to South Africa. And South Africa, at that time, you see, was living under apartheid. And apartheid meant that if you were white, you could do anything. But if you were black, you were nothing. And, you know, there would be no black players playing for South Africa. So that was the reason why the authorities in this country said, we don't... In other words, if we went out there and played and we supported South Africa in that way, it would look towards the world as though we were supportive of apartheid.

9:46Do you remember anything about South Africa as a country, what it was like? I heard that you went on lots of safaris and there were certain players who even shot animals and were given gifts by the great hospitality in the country. What do you remember of those trips? Well, I was never a shooter of the springbok, no. You just beat them on the pitch? Yes, there were some players who shot a springbok. I don't mean the actual player, but the springbok animal, you know, the wild animal. Well, he wasn't very wild, actually. He kept still long enough for them to kill the thing, get the skin and take it home with them.

10:28So ultimately, yes. There was one great story I've read that there was a family that kept a leopard alive for one of your lion's colleagues to shoot and then ended up giving him the pelt, the skin. But he ended up having it taken off him in Nairobi. He lost it. Someone stole it from his hotel room. Isn't that strange when somebody gave me a leopard? That is there. Is that from your trip to South Africa? Wow. So on the sofa here we've got leopard skin, basically. So that came back all the way from South Africa. I'm in a springbok here somewhere. I expect you're sitting on the back of your chair.

11:05OK, yes, I'm sitting on it now. Yeah, there you go. Selected alongside Meredith in 1955 was Tom Elliott, a prop forward for Gala and Scotland. Elliott's father initially told him he couldn't travel, saying there was too much work to be done on the family sheep farm in the borders. Elliot did eventually go to South Africa. He spent some of the tour in hospital with pleurisy, but he played eight games. When the team returned, the secretary of the Four Home Unions Touring Committee, Eliel Don, wrote to Elliot's father, thanking him for making his son available. My committee would like you to know that his exemplary conduct and loyalty contributed in no small measure to the outstanding success of the team, both on and off the field.

11:4970 years on, Elliot's grandson, Finn Smith, the England fly half, is a Lion in 2025. The on-field success referred to in the letter was a two-all draw against the Springboks in 1955. Four years later, the Lions lost 3-1 in New Zealand, but their dashing rugby was led by a star outside half from Wales. There was only one Cliff Morgan, and he was quite brilliant. I don't think he knew what he was going to do himself, actually, but he did it and he played in a startling manner, really. I don't think he knew which way he was going to go once he got the ball. Whichever was the quickest and the shortest, I suppose.

12:33That was in his mind because that's the way in which he responded to every threat, I suppose. Yes, he was quite on his own. Yeah. Did you find it easy to follow him around the pitch? Because you were quite dynamic yourself. You scored a lot of tries from Hooker. Well, yeah. That again, you see.

12:59This is the idea of the game, isn't it? You'll score tries. But things develop, you see. You can't create them yourself, really. it's all how it happened you've got to be in the right place at that particular time Because he didn't have many coaches either did you, if any, in those early trips No, we didn't have any coaches at all I suppose we were the original ones really but there again, you see you've still got to have players who are individual players anyway and that's what makes the difference between a player like Cliff Morgan but yes, you know It's those players who are willing to do something to get away from the opposition, I suppose.

13:46The results of these games were important to the players. Of course they were. But Meredith is now 94, and it was the experience and the people that mattered to him the most. I don't think there's anything like what I beat the Piggum with. I think it's a fantastic game. And collectively, you see, there's no sort of us and them. you're all together in the same group drinking the same beer meeting the same all the time and there's no sort of animosity about it really So that camaraderie that kind of team spirit It's fantastic yes it's rather like you know I go to the rugby club every Saturday and it doesn't matter which other rugby club you go to it's exactly the same it doesn't matter which rugby club you go to So you don't see any difference at all.

14:35Well, at least I don't anyway. I think that's the lovely thing about the game, really, is that because I always... Not as I said in the rugby club. Because I always say the best thing about rugby football is the third half. The third half was when you were in the bar discussing why you didn't score. And that's the lovely thing about rugby, really. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you didn't win. What difference does it make? It's only a game. Did you have any memorable evenings with the New Zealanders or the South Africans that come to mind on those trips? Christ, for 60 years. Maybe you drank so much you don't remember it.

15:19Some of those were very late nights, actually. That's another nice thing about it, you see. that you can have late nights out and you're playing against them the following day or you're just playing against them. And the winning or the losing matters, of course it does, but it's not the end of the world. It's in your bloody game after all. My name's Bryn Meredith, I'm the 361st Lion to be selected and I did three tours, 55, 59 and 62. Did I? where did those times go?

16:01Meredith's third and last Lions tour was in 1962, the year South Africa imprisoned Nelson Mandela. Meredith roomed on that trip with a young lock from Ulster. Bryn Meredith, he was a great favourite of mine. I was only a young man, I was 21 years of age. And I can thank Bryn for quite a few things, but I admired him as a player, he was a great player. and he always gave me credit, particularly I remember him saying one day, he says, when McBride's behind me in the scrum I know he's there. And you know, it was things like that that spurred you on. I'm Willie John McBride and I was lucky to go on the five Lions tours 1962, 1966, 1968, 1971 and 1974.

16:47Willie John McBride, the greatest Lion of all. he played 70 games and 17 tests over five tours. I have great memories, wonderful memories of the Lions. They were a wonderful part of my life, really. In many ways, they were an education. They were the completion of my education. Because, you know, if you can imagine in those days, amateur days, of course, to travel, first of all, to be selected as one of the sort of best players in the four countries, that's special, absolutely special. and then to travel with 30 guys as they were in those days we had a very strict limit of 30 and from four different countries to travel with them for what three four or five months it was it was quite a i tell you it taught you a lot of tolerance and understanding of of human beings you know they were a very very close bunch of men and a wonderful bunch of men in clem thomas's book on the history of the lions his section on the 1960s is called the toilers the Lions didn't win a test against New Zealand or South Africa for the whole decade they were just not nasty enough we didn't really compete in many ways you know we gave it our best but we were never going to beat New Zealand we were never going to beat South Africa in those early days and you know we got thrashed by the leg of South Africa where you went to South Africa outdoors coaching and they played the same style of rugby all the way through funny enough in this professional area they're still doing the same thing it was amazing and the same thing applied in 1966 and it wasn't until 68 we drew a test which was tremendous and that was the forerunner to 71 of course and Carwin James who was selected as coach there was a lot more thought put into the selection in 71 and indeed 74 as to what sort of type of man that we were to take that could stand with the all black pack or the spring backpack, the spring backpack.

18:48So there was a lot, we became a lot more physical as well. New Zealand had this sort of attitude, win at all costs, and that opens a lot of doors. And it was tough, and it was something that we had never experienced before. And thankfully, I must admit that you looked after yourself in many ways. Thankfully, I got through it without any injury. And those were the days, of course, of rocking, where we rocked the ball. and it went beyond that at times. There's no question about it. There were players injured that should never have been injured. But, you know, you learn very quickly not to fall on the ground and not to be on the ground.

19:26You're playing on very, very hard grounds. It was amazing. And, you know, one of the things I remember we went to, which is now Namibia, in those days it was called South West Africa, and we went to play there, and I remember going there, and, oh, boy, it was like playing in the desert. And the ground was so hard, and I remember at half time they brought on water tankers to water down the pitch to keep the dust down. It was unbelievable and you were sort of spitting up dust for days after it. Like nowadays in the professional, you just wouldn't ask players to do that. So there were many things.

20:00But not only that, the game in many ways was different because it was played at 100 miles an hour and of course when you went to altitude, it was my first experience of playing at altitude and it was rather frightening because we didn't really know anything about it. And when you went to altitude, it was tough stuff, tough stuff for us. By 1971, Willie John thought his race was run with the Lions. He'd been on three tours. It was time to focus on his career in the bank. But then the great coach, Carwin James, invited him to lunch. I can tell you a story about 71. I had done three tours at that stage and I was in the bank.

20:36and you know I really hadn't given I'd been away a lot and I thought look I've got to give the bank a bit of a bit more attention because at the end of the day they're going to be paying my pension and I've got to give it a bit more attention and try and push myself a bit further so I thought I've had enough I've had three and anyway Carwin James rang me and he said I want to have a chat and I said yeah no problem and I had met him in Wales a few times and anyway we had lunch and we had a chat about what players in the four countries that I would pick out that we could take there that could stand up to the New Zealanders and towards the end of the conversation he said to me he said have I heard a rumour that you might not be available for the tour and I said yes and I told him exactly what I've said about I'd been in the bank and they really have been very good to me in three tours.

21:33And I decided that I was going to concentrate more on my career and that I would leave at this time. And I remember, Carwin smoked cigarettes and I remember he took a big long draw of this cigarette and he sort of blew the smoke out. And then he looked at me and he said, but this is going to be different. And then he said something to me that really knocked me over because nobody had ever said this to me in my life before. he says, Willie John, he says, I need you. And I left that lunch and I said, right, I'm going on this tour. And, you know, it was just three words. But it just lifted me. I grew another two feet.

22:13And, you know, that sort of thing in life is very important to tell people how you feel. So 71, we were really prepared because for the first time, I was very happy that he had asked me what he'd asked me about the players because nobody had ever asked me before and you know that's how you really know a player it's when you're playing against them and what he can do and what he will take and it was quite clever I thought of Carwin to do that because he was a back he wasn't a forward he knew nothing about scrummaging he knew nothing about line out play or rocking so he asked somebody who was involved in this for years and I thought that's that's quite clever because nobody's ever done that before nobody ever consulted players the lions won the four test series 3-1 things were different no longer were they just adventurers we began to get this feeling of you know not being second best we had to be best and you know when you looked at the back line and caravan said uh you know i remember at the beginning when we were having our early days coaching and preparing and caravan was talking to us and he said right we are not going to kick the ball he said And every time that we play against the All Blacks in the past, when we got the ball, we kicked it.

23:28And we kicked it back to them. And he said, that was stupid. He said, we're going to run at them. And he said, look at the back line we have. You know, there was Stockholm and Gerald Davison. You know, it just was tremendous. Of course, you had Gareth and Barry John at that time. And you had Mike Gibson in the centre. And it really rocked New Zealand. As the episode title says, the Lions, with McBride in the second row, grew from adventurers to invincible. If the 71 series win against the All Blacks demonstrated the best of British and Irish rugby, 1974 was the soaring peak of all achievements in the amateur era.

24:04It was the greatest Lions tour. I knew I was in line, obviously, for captaincy. And I thought, wouldn't that be a nice thing? And anyway, we owe South Africa one and I owe South Africa one. And we'll have one last go at this. So that's the way I felt for 74. The Lions played 22 games in South Africa over two and a half months. They won 21 consecutive matches before drawing the fourth test, 13 all. Although the Lions to this day are convinced that Fergus Slattery scored a try with the final play of the final test. Oh, one feels the Lions were robbed in those dying seconds. But the score remains.

24:4013 points all. You know, I played five Lions tours. We never once, never once had a neutral referee. and you know I'm not saying they were cheating us but there are times when you felt that there were things not going the way they should have gone and you know that didn't make life easy I can tell you Yes, Fergus Lattery would tell you Well I know I was within about 3 or 4 yards from where he touched the ball down but that's life

25:16One thing that we said it was maybe quite a nice thing just to draw it because it gave an opportunity for some future side to win all the matches. Yeah, true. And that would be the first time it's ever been achieved. I'm Andy Irvin, line number 518, and I played on the tours to South Africa in 1974, New Zealand in 1977, and South Africa in 1980. It was just an amazing thrill to be selected I mean I played in 74 and some of the players in that 74 tour the likes of Willie John, Mike Gibson I was in primary 5 at school when they first played for the Lions so I was just a 10, 11 year old kid and then 10 years later to be playing with them is pretty special and I mean I still think of the likes of Willie John as almost like a school teacher or a headmaster rather than a colleague because you know they were just they were literally heroes and it was such an honour to play with them and it was a bit like almost going on a schoolboy adventure and it was almost like a holiday as well because in South Africa the weather is so good out there and rugby's such a big sport there.

26:43You know, you were treated like film stars. I mean, it was amazing. We couldn't go along the street or to the beach without all the locals coming up and asking you questions and asking to take photographs and so forth. The black supporters in South Africa, when they went to the matches, they supported the Lions and they would usually be given some sort of corner of the field and before we went out to play, We would warm up on the field. We would go over and say hello to the local black population. And we got a tremendous ovation. And they supported us throughout the whole tour. One could argue that the South Africans were perhaps a little bit off the ball because they had been denied some international matches because of the apartheid situation.

27:34So we possibly caught them a little bit cool early on in the tour. but later on they obviously had when you're playing four tests they do have an opportunity to catch up and really get to play with each other and indeed they did get better as the tour developed although I still think we're actually a bit unlucky to only draw the last test The names from 74 trip seamlessly off the tongue Mike Gibson, Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennett JJ Williams, Gordon Brown Fran Cotton, JPR Williams Gareth Edwards, probably the best player the world's ever seen. Phil Bennett on hard grounds was untouchable. J.J. Williams was quicker than most Olympic sprinters.

28:19We just had so many great players. Score! Phil Bennett! What a solo effort! What a dramatic try for Phil Bennett. He'll never score better than that. You just never thought that you were going to lose. You know, Gareth Edwards, he's not a particularly conceited or big-headed chap, But he inspired that sort of confidence in you. And to hear the likes of him talk and Willie John, Slattery would say a few words, Ian McLaughlin, again, there were so many top-class, absolutely top-class world players all on that same side. It was inevitable that you were going to do pretty well. McBride had learned through the 1960s that to beat the box, the Lions had to stand up to their physicality, to not be bullied on the field, to get their retaliation in first.

29:17And that led to the infamous 99 call. It did exist, yes. It was before the East London game. And we had experienced one or two nasty things in games before this. But worse still, I remember before the East London game, I got this call. I don't know who it was from or where it was from, but it said, two guys on this team who will not be good for your health. And I said, oh, that's very good. And I said, I'll look forward to meeting them. And they put the phone down and I put the phone down. And I thought about this and I said, right, we'll be ready this time. And I thought the best way for us to approach this is, neutral referee, we'll all be involved.

30:01We had a team meeting earlier before the team was announced. and I said about Saturday and I told them about this incident of the phone call and I said we're not going to accept this and we're not going to run away from it. I said we will confront it. And I said the first incident is because we're going to play a test match shortly and they will be targeting Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennett, maybe even Mervyn Davis. And I said if anybody lays a finger on one of them we're all in this and you just belt the nearest guy to you. Innocent or not. Sure enough, went out, we scored a couple of tries. Gareth got the ball and he passed it to Phil Bennett.

30:43And this guy came through the line out and he hit Gareth long after the ball was passed. And he hit him and knocked him flying. Now, Gareth's a resilient little guy, but he was hurt. Like that, I said my call was 999, which is emergency. And then I said, no, that's too long. We'll make it 99. We'll make it into an ice cream. So anyway, I shouted at night and night, and wow, it was unbelievable. Everybody reacted like that. And I remember at that meeting, Phil Bennett, he says, I said, has anybody got any problems? And Phil Bennett put his hand up, and Phil used to call me leader. And Phil says, leader, he says, am I involved in this?

31:21And Phil was by a long way the smallest man in the team. And I said, Phil, this is a team. This is all a team effort. It wasn't for the backs at all. This was for the forwards. But you can't say that. We're all in it. And I said, Phil, this is a team effort. So we're all in it. So Phil sort of bowed the head. And then we went out in the field. And it was hilarious because, well, it wasn't hilarious what happened on the field. But it did happen. And the referee was totally confused because there was guys lying all over the place. And Gareth was all right, which was the main thing. But it stopped the nonsense.

31:58And I said to the referee, you see, he threw at me. and he said to me that they weren't going to accept this. And I said, you've accepted a lot more than this. I said, you didn't penalise the guy who hit Gareth. And I said, you've created a problem. And I said, either you stop it or we will stop it. It's as simple as that. The whole tour came to a head at the Battle of Boet Erasmus, the third test of 74. The Lions won the fighting, the match and the series, 3-0 up with one to play. He called 99 quite a few times. and to be fair, I would think mostly we won the fight, or the forwards won the fight.

32:36Both sides piling in, and some of the most appalling scenes one can ever have witnessed in a rugby test match. These scraps, they were more scraps than anything. The fists break out.

32:54And really this is a giant free-for-all, fitting more for the boxing ring. The only back that got involved was JPR because JPR just loved a fight. So whenever there was a fight, I'd be looking at Phil Bennett and we'd be saying, well, what do we do here? And JPR would be flying past, trying to jump in. And, you know, the ironic thing was he was a doctor and doctors were supposed to cure and help people. And he was in there. But it was all part of it. I've read, there's a famous story that Gordon Brown hit Jan de Bruyne so hard his glass eye fell out. Is that right? Was that a powerful tale? The great story was Gordon knocked it out and they couldn't find it.

33:39So they were all looking in the grass and Gordon found it and said, oh, Johan, is this yours? He said, oh, yes, thank you, Gordon. And he stuck it back in. And as they lined up to take the line out again, Gordon said, stop, stop, don't throw the ball in yet. Johan, you've got a bit of grass sticking out your eye. Now, Gordon actually used to tell that story at various dinners and so forth. And this is absolutely true. Gordon passed away when he was only 53 with non-Hodgkinson's lymphoma. And just before he passed away, we had a major dinner for him to raise funds for his charity. And it's absolutely true.

34:26So Ewan de Bruyne came across for that. And Gordon was up on stage saying a few words. And they asked Ewan de Bruyne to go up and have a wee chat with him. And he went up with a small rugby ball and mounted on the rugby ball was his glass eye. And he presented that to Gordon on stage. And sadly Gordon passed away a few days later. The Sunday Times report from Vivian Jenkins barely referenced the fighting. his poetic dispatch hailed the glory of the lions. July 14th, 1974. All the angels and the archangels and their trumpeters could not do justice to this. Whatever Hillary felt when he planted his flag on the peak of Everest must surely have been mirrored in the mind of Willie John McBride, Captain Supreme, when his teammates hoisted him aloft on their shoulders at the end of this pulsating match here at Port Elizabeth.

35:21It was something to savour for all one's remaining years, and the players' grandchildren will still be talking about it decades from now. I had no idea that we were going to win every game. So my aim was at the beginning of that, I remember talking to the players, and I said, we are here to win the Test Series. We are here to beat South Africa. And that's what I was concentrating on. But then it became, it nearly became a thing, a competition within the team, because, you know, we started to win, and then you pick another team for Wednesday and they said, oh, the guys want to start it. We've got to win this.

35:55And it became a competition within the team. We're not going to lose. It's as simple as that. And, you know, it's a marvellous feeling to be in the dressing room before you go on the field. And you know, with the confidence that there is around you, that we're going to win. We're going to win this. There's no other way. And, you know, it was just that switch thing came on again when we went on that field. It was full concentration. and the guy beside you was always there. You know, it was a real, real team effort. And, you know, South Africa in 74, we scored more tries than anybody. We had a superb backline in 74, I can tell you.

36:31And as captain, I knew that every time we let that ball back, that we were going forward. We weren't going backwards, I'll tell you that. And, as I say, they scored more tries than I. There just was that confidence. and you know in every player in 74 nobody was going to be second best to anybody it was as simple as that we were going to be number one and what we developed which was I found it absolutely amazing they became nearly like an engine like a machine that you could switch on and switch off because we had a heck of a lot of fun in 74 when it was downplay when it was downtime. McBride talked about fun, the Lions had a reputation for playing hard and partying harder, often leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.

37:18In 1938, Paddy Main was responsible for most of it. He would become one of Britain's greatest soldiers. His antics in South Africa became the stuff of legend. Main and Bill Travers, the Welsh hooker, came across a gang of shackled prisoners sleeping under the scaffolding of a temporary stand being erected in Johannesburg, shocked to learn one of them had been given seven years for stealing chickens, they returned with bolt cutters and set him free. When Rooster, as they named him, was recaptured, he was still wearing Maine's jacket. 1968 had the Wreckers, who had a similar disregard for hotel fixtures and fittings as Paddy Maine.

37:58On a train to Kruger National Park, they charged into a compartment looking to turn Willie John out of his bed, but they got the wrong one, and a startled elderly couple were forced into the corridor. 1974 had its own moments. There was one story which people keep telling which happened, I think it was after the second test, third test. It must have been when we'd won the series. And I said to the guys, right, relax, relax. And I'm not captain again until Monday. and anyway I was in bed and there's a knock at my door anyway I opened the door and there was the beautiful face of Mervyn Davis and Roger Utley and I said what's the problem and I said leader I think you better come because there's a bit of trouble down in the mesonite floor where the team are and I had been there earlier in the night and I said I'm going to bed I can't take this because I was an old man in 74 and I got I was bloody tired I'll tell you that after that game and anyway I wandered down and I got into this mess and I was in my underpants and I just got out of bed it was in my underpants and I wandered in and this manager and he was there standing and he was telling all the guys and the guys were all on this mezzanine floor and they were all sitting sitting around on the floor drinking.

39:24And I'll never forget it because they had lit sort of orange boxes. People used to bring oranges and things into the team room. And they had lit these and they had a fire in the middle of the room. It was unbelievable. And they were all sitting around this because it gets very cold in South Africa, as you can imagine, in the wintertime. And they were all sitting around this. And they were all listening to this guy telling them how bad they were and what he was going to do. And then he said, well, I'm not having any more of this. He said, I'm going to get the police. And I thought, oh, my God. So I remember he stamped off the floor and he was standing, pressing a button to get the lift.

40:02And I said, excuse me, excuse me. I said, look, and I'm standing on my underpass. And I said, excuse me. I said, look, I'm the captain of this team. And I said, he said, I don't care. I don't care. He said, I'm going to get the police. And I sort of hesitated for a moment. and I don't know why, but I said, tell me this. I said, do you think there'll be many of them? And the guys all burst out laughing. You see, they're all, oh! And I'll never forget, he stood there at this lift, for I don't know how long, and he turned and he came back and he stood and looked at me, and I was standing on this sort of step.

40:36And he looked up at me, and he said, and there was a bit of a glint in his eye, and he looked up at me and he said, that was bloody good, he says. And I said, look, I'll tell you something. I will see if the guys go to bed now, there'd be no more trouble. And I said, it's best we sort this out in the morning. And, you know, we got away with it. I still owe that guy a drink. But come the evening before a game, it was like just turning a switch. And, you know, we just looked at each other. We all knew what was happening. And our job is tomorrow. That's why we've worked. That's why we're here. And they were like a switch.

41:10And go on the field. You know, once they got a jersey, a pair of shorts and a pair of boots on, they were a different animal. It was as simple as that. And I remember sitting there and looking at the guys. I would be at the front and I'd be sitting there and I was just thinking, I'm sitting here in this room with some of the best rugby players in the world. What have I to say to them? And then I remember us going on the field and it started. And it just was, as I say, like a switch. It was unbelievable. With the Lions invincible, South Africa was left an embarrassed rugby nation. Cries of agony and despair.

41:47a rising high in South Africa. The British Lions have inflicted the most humiliating and sustained defeats in Springbok rugby history, and it's been taken badly. But when the ranting and hair pulling is done, there is widespread acceptance of the notion that South African rugby has plunged to its present low level, largely because it is being played in increasing isolation as a result of apartheid. Failing a major breakthrough in attitude, South African rugby is likely to

42:18And the Lions? The excerpt I was going to read you, which is again from, I think, from the Times, on the Monday after the third test, when the tour hasn't finished, but the series has been secured. As he left the Burt-Erasmus Stadium... ...here to join his colleagues in a victory celebration. McBride said, now I can die happy. We did what we came to do. I had experienced all the defeats, all the failures. and then I had experienced 71 where we beat New Zealand just and now we had finished a job which we were dominant we were dominant in South Africa and every game we went out we actually out-scrummaged them that feeling of dominance and saying at the beginning of the tour we're here to win the Test Series and to complete that the way we did was terrific because we did it in three Next time on the Red Lions Lions struggle through the 1980s and 90s through gruesome weather, political strains and challenges of the game's amateur status.

43:19It all leads to a catalogue of crushing defeats and questions over the relevance of the Lions. I think it was always going to be a very, very tough act to follow. You know, I remember being absolutely gobsmacked that there were bus stops for whites and blacks. When Gerry Gaskett calls for the ball, you give him the ball. And such was the beating in the first test. it had to take a massive change in attitude and commitment for that second test. By the end of the era though there are chinks of light and as professionalism dawns the Lions roar again in South Africa. I don't think I ever took myself to that level again in my career even winning the World Cup.

44:00This is the Red Lions from the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from the Times and Sunday Times. The series was produced by Alfie Reynolds.

44:38We'll be right back. Grainger.com or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.