'A mammoth undertaking' - Lions' life on the road
Boiling four nations down to one team, cooking up a gameplan in four weeks and getting to Test match temperature on enemy territory.A Lions tour is unique for players and coaches.But for the team behind the team, a whistle-stop itinerary, vast distances and a host of unknowns also present a recipe for potential disaster.Safely in Sydney for the tourists' final stop, Tom Day is one of the team to help avert it."This is a mammoth undertaking when you consider transporting a playing squad and backroom team to and from the southern hemisphere, and then around the touring country itself," says Day, the team's logistics manager.
The Lions come with considerable baggage - almost 10 tonnes were brought to Australia with them.It consists of four sets of identical training kits, which were then divided up and sent around Australia. Wherever the Lions arrive, they find a lorry container of equipment, including a scrum sled, on the side of the pitch to help them prepare.One set was driven the 2,390 miles from Perth to Sydney, a distance equivalent to London to Siberia, to be in the right place at the right time. In total, the plan stretches to 53 separate truck journeys covering about 7,000 miles.
"One set of kit will always be ahead of us and the sets of kit yo-yo around the country, so that when we leave one city, the arrival into the next city is already sorted as there is kit there and the hotels and training grounds are already set-up," explains Day.He is also part of an advance party that is one step ahead of the squad on the ground. Along with a member of the security team, Day makes sure any last-minute wrinkles that have cropped up since recce trips in September and January are ironed out before the players arrive.After Saturday's third Test in Sydney, the Lions will head back home with a series win, but without their kit.It is being left in Australia and donated to local clubs and schools, rather than shipped back to Dublin.
The long-haul nature of a Lions tour means it also comes with considerable carbon cost.A return flight from London to Sydney generates around 2,484 kg of carbon dioxide per passenger, just from the burning of fuel. Emissions at high altitude are also almost three times more harmful than at ground level.The Lions have committed to offsetting all of the carbon, external created by their tour party's travel, as well as that created by their fans' travel and the team's business operations at a cost of more than £250,000.
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Reuters
43 minutes ago
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Telegraph
an hour ago
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Joe Schmidt hits back at Carlo Tizzano ‘dive' critics: ‘He suffered a high-magnitude impact'
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It's everything for us as a group to get excited about. It was 1974 the last time a Lions team went through the Test series unbeaten, so there's huge motivation for the group. It's one of those weeks where after two hard physical Tests it's about getting the battery filled up and making sure we're good to go by the end of the week. 'Faz has been massive on that since the start, his expectation not just of the players but us as management and coaches, to be the most successful team. It has been driving us, not just as players, but as a management group every day to get better every day and push each other forward.' Being self-reporting his own concussion symptoms, Ringrose, the Ireland centre, is likely to never become a Test match Lion. The 30-year-old, who missed out on selection for the 2017 and 2021 tours, was ruled out of the first Test after suffering a concussion in the warm-up match against the Brumbies. However, Goodman says that Ringrose has remained a positive influence within the camp. 'He's disappointed as you can imagine,' Goodman said. 'Garry was playing some amazing rugby through this tour and someone you know who it's been a dream of his for so long to represent the Lions and he's managed to do that. But he wanted to be a Test-match Lion, so it's been devastating for him. 'To his credit he's been good around the group. As you can imagine, anyone that knows Garry, he's a great lad and a team man so the boys have all been disappointed for him. Obviously he's disappointed for himself but he's getting around everyone and making sure he helps prepare everyone as much as he can. 'He's a real leader for us in terms our back line in particular, so he's been great.' Squid Game challenge for Lions Lions players were welcomed back from two days of partying to training in Sydney with a special version of Squid Game arranged by head coach Andy Farrell. After securing a series victory in the 29-26 win over Australia at the MCG on Saturday, the Lions squad were given dispensation to let their hair down over the course of Saturday and Sunday nights with several members of the touring party spotted looking slightly worse for wear in Sydney on Monday. With Farrell targeting a 3-0 whitewash of the Wallabies, a gentle reintroduction to training was administered by John Fogarty, the scrum coach, who at Farrell's bequest set up the 'green light, red light' game from the Netflix series where contestants are allowed to sneak forward on the green light signal but are eliminated if they move when the light is red. 'Andy's always on having fun as a group, today we got down to training and he'd sent Fogs down early to set up the Squid Game mini-team challenge, the whole field was covered in equipment,' Goodman, the assistant coach, said. 'The staff were dressed up in all that kit, the speakers were all set up, a bit of fun, stuff like that to get a bit of energy back in the group. It was green light, red light, the whole field was covered in different things they could hide behind, and they had people in the top tier keeping an eye on people. It was a good craic.' According to Goodman, Thomas Clarkson, the Leinster prop, was the first player eliminated in the game but the fun element of the game underlines Farrell's ability to mix business with pleasure. 'Every week we've done things like that,' Goodman said. 'All part of touring, isn't it? Even with Ireland it's a part of his week to make sure there's fun involved. The mini-team stuff, the little challenges he'll have at the start of meetings, there's always a bit of craic, a bit of a laugh involved. It keeps the boys engaged and fresh and it's not just going into a meeting where it's rugby all the time. There are little bits like that that make it enjoyable as well.'
