08-05-2025
Picking a Lions squad now is very different to my time answering to the committee
Selecting a British and Irish Lions squad has changed over the years. In 1993 ahead of the tour of New Zealand, I found myself in a private room in the famous East India Club in London. It was the last tour of the amateur era and a world away from the final meeting that Andy Farrell and his Lions coaches would have held on Wednesday.
I found myself sitting in front of a Lions committee, made up of around eight or nine representatives from the four home unions, which was chaired by England.
It was the same room that I had been interviewed for the job of head coach a few months earlier by the same committee. I think they interviewed four people in all. I know Dick Best, who was head coach of England at the time and who ended up as my assistant in New Zealand, was one. I never found out who the other two were.
When we met up again just after the final round of matches in the Five Nations Championship, the first item on the agenda was the tour captain. I was already in London because Scotland had played their last game, against England, a couple of weeks earlier. Dick, meanwhile, had to fly in from Dublin, where Ireland had caused a major upset by beating England the previous day at Lansdowne Road.
'I want Gavin Hastings to be my captain,' I said. In my mind he was the only choice, just as Finlay Calder had been in Australia four years earlier. I wanted someone I could trust, but also someone I knew would be honest with me. If something wasn't right, that meant we could nail it straight away, so it didn't become an issue. I could count on Gav on both fronts.
I was adamant it should be him. But the committee seemed less certain. 'We will need to discuss this,' I was told. They insisted that I rang Gav and ask him that if he was to be offered the captaincy of the Lions, what would his answer be?
And so I did just that and told him the line that I had been asked to say. He was bewildered. 'Geech, what are you talking about? You know what it means to me!' he said.
'Gav, I am here with the Lions committee and just need to know your answer,' I replied.
'You know what my answer would be,' he said.
'So, your answer would be that you would accept?' I replied, trying to give the committee words that they wanted to hear. I had to explain what had been going on to him when we next met up.
The procedure for selecting the squad was even more drawn out. Filling the other 29 places also required a discussion for each player, with everyone having a say and, in some cases, a vote. You can imagine how long it took and in some cases I ended up with players that I had not gone for.
Four years earlier, ahead of the tour of Australia, it had been much more straightforward. Clive Rowlands, the team manager, was brilliant. He had organised for every country to have a selector who had been watching players over the season and feeding information in, but they did not have a vote on selection.
The captain and squad were picked by Clive, myself and Roger Uttley, my assistant coach. In the build-up I had been speaking to the other national head coaches about players' strengths and weaknesses, but also their characters – what they were like off the pitch as well as on it – and how they trained. I wanted as round a picture as I could get of each player. That was just as important as talent on a Lions tour, and it still is today. But this was not the case in 1993.
So, when I was very pleasantly surprised when Fran Cotton asked me if I would be head coach again to South Africa in 1997, I said I would do it on two conditions. 'I want Jim Telfer to coach the forwards and that you, me and Jim pick the squad,' I told Fran. He saw it through. Fran was a brilliant manager.
In many ways, the 1997 tour was a watershed moment for the Lions. Sky Sports came on board, it was in the same time zone as the UK and Ireland, the game had just turned professional which meant we could pick players who had gone to rugby league for the first time. It was also the first time we took 35 players instead of 30. That came about after I had gone out the year before to watch the Springboks' series against the All Blacks. I spent time with the All Blacks and they were really helpful and let me watch their sessions.
After one of them I had a long conversation with Sean Fitzpatrick, the All Blacks captain, and John Hart. Their advice was to bring a third player for each of the key positions – prop, hooker, one in the back five, scrum-half, and one in the back three. Fitzpatrick said that as a hooker on all his previous tours, he had been involved in every game, either starting or on the bench. It meant that he could never switch off. He also recommended bringing all our own equipment, because without it, we would not be in control of everything on the ground if we left it to the host union.
So that's what we did. I put together a report on recommendations for what needed to be in place, and the Lions committee just approved the whole lot to go ahead with it as we wanted, with squad selection, appointments and the type of rugby I felt we had to play to beat South Africa.
We brought five extra players in the squad, and organised scrum machines and all our kit so we were totally self-contained and in complete control of every venue that we trained at. Everything was in place and recognisable as the same for the players, so there were no surprises, and we could plan everything out.
This time there was no committee discussion about the captaincy or awkward phone calls. I said to Fran that I wanted Martin Johnson to be captain. It could have been seen as a controversial selection. Johnno was not even captain of Leicester at the time, never mind England.
It was a template that was still in place when I was asked to be head coach again for the tour of South Africa in 2009. Things have of course evolved from then, but one thing remains unchanged from every time there is a Lions squad announcement. It takes me back to when I was in that position as a player.
'Chemistry and relationships established on tour never go away'
In 1974, I received a letter in the post informing me that I had been selected for the tour of South Africa. Back then, the side were called BIRUT – British Isles Rugby Union Team. That was what was on our bags in capital letters. The Lions have had a huge impact on my life.
The special relationships with the squad and with the jersey are like nothing you can describe. It is such a personal thing because the identity is with one group of players. Most of them you will never play with again.
Dick Milliken and I were partners in the centre in the 1974 Test team and became good friends and have remained so every since. Our families met and we have spoken to each other every year since. Last year we had our 50th anniversary of the 1974 tour. When we met up in Belfast, it was incredible because that rapport and feeling was immediately there again. The chemistry and relationships established on tour never go away.
One thing that I made sure I did when I was head coach in 2009, even though the squad was broadcast and the news was instantly available on the internet, was to send each player a letter, signed by me, informing them of their selection, because it meant so much to me as a player.
For the squad that is announced on Thursday, the thing I want more than anything is for them to create their own unique bond.
