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The Lions on tour










The row continues...
A very uncivil war
Eddie Butler on the continuing fall out between the management and players on the Lions' tour.

Letters
What a can of worms we opened...

Lions Scapegoatgate


How Henry hung Healey out to dry
Eddie Butler: Look, it wasn't Austin. It was I. Each and every word in the Austin Healey columns over six weeks in The Guardian and The Observer was written by me.

The true crime is publishing boring columns, not honest ones
Brian Oliver, comment: It was arguably the best pass by a Lions man on the whole tour: Graham Henry to Austin Healey last Sunday morning at a press briefing in Sydney.

Who would you rather read?
Gary Neville, Cathy Freeman, Alan Shearer and Lions captain Martin Johnson slug it out for the title of dullest diarist in the world.

An anarchic talent
Austin Healey profile, by Kevin Mitchell.
Austin Healey factfile

Austin Healey's Observer columns


Stunning triumph for the hand of plod
Great day, eh? I can't tell you what's been worst, the back, the Test or the shoeing yours truly has had out here for what I wrote on Friday morning.
First test: it was unbelievable
Second test: it hurts, it really hurts
Sick game - and they call us dirty
Piling up the points after asthma attack

Lions lose series


Lions left in the cold as Aussies win endgame
So, no fairy tale. That would have been asking too much of a tour built on cold analysis, cold reality and, unfortunately, cold shoulder.

Johnson desolate, Macqueen chaired off
When a man as intransigent as Martin Johnson takes the microphone in front of 84,000 people and says simply: 'I'm sorry,' to the 20,000-strong contingent that had come to support his team, you know he has reached something of a low.

How the Lions rated
Player-by-player analysis of the defeated team, plus man of the match.

The Australian viewpoint
The 1989 British and Irish Lions series was decided by that pass. Twelve years on and that catch squared the ledger.

The frosty regime of hermit Henry
The English core were rock solid, the Celts added colour, but the coach's secrecy may not have been the best policy on a tour that gave him too many sleepless nights, says Eddie Butler.

The prints of darkness
Players writing newspaper columns was never the real problem, says Kevin Mitchell.

Aussies level series


Macqueen keeps Aussies keen with retirement announcement
No complacency: Aussies asked to win it to end Rod Macqueen's reign.

Wounded Wallabies silence Lions roar
'We never play badly twice.' It was the pledge the Wallabies made on their arrival here in Melbourne, and they kept their word.

How the Lions rated
Marks out of ten for the defeated pack

Rock solid - at last
Peter Jenkins Rugby Union Correspondent of 'The Australian', hails one of the Wallabies' greatest comebacks.

Lions still a waste of time says Probyn
Kevin Mitchell speaks to a man who sees no worth in the greatest tour of all

First test triumph


Sea of red celebrates Lions' day of wonder
Robinson leads and O'Driscoll follows to shock Australia, as Lions triumph 29-13.
Aussie view: Champions on canvas
Black days for grumpy tourists
Dawson's showdown

Austin Healey: Player's view


Eddie Butler
Big game hunters
OSM, June 2001: Even in these professional times, a lions tour remains the pinnacle for British rugby union players. Eddie Butler, a former tourist himself, reflects on the enduring magic, while four of this summer's tourists explain what the trip to Australia means to them.

Stepford wives, snakebites and gallows humour
It is always easy to make a climactic leap in Australia, but nothing could match the transfer the morning after Test victory for the Lions from tropical Brisbane to Canberra. The national capital was cold, and that was just the weather. It is laid out with chilling precision and we are not talking Versailles, but Bucharest circa Ceausescu.

Black days for grumpy tourists
July 1 Eddie Butler's Tour diary

My best tour effort since kicking a spectator in 1983
The Lions moved from their isolation on the western tip of Australia to the eastern seaboard at the pace of a broken-down aircraft. Which was precisely the state of their charter plane in Perth.

The squad


Careers hang in balance
In the third minute of the first half of the first Test, the Lions sent the ball to Jason Robinson and the little winger scored a try that set in motion a most amazing half of rugby.

How can... The lions beat Australia in Australia
Simon Poidevin, Former Australian captain.

Jason's God-given gift
Could code-breaker have taken to first taste of southern-hemisphere rugby union any more magnificently?
How good is Jason Robinson?

Put your shirt on giant Johnson
Eddie Butler interrupts the Lions captain during a bad day at the office.

Silent Kiwi holds key
Graham Henry's Lions leave on Saturday and he has all the tools to conquer Australia. Eddie Butler on the Lions coach who's keeping his plan of campaign under wraps.






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