The Lions - New Zealand 1971

MUSIC PLAYS

So much of our rugby is familiar, close to home.

Grand Slams in the Five Nations, the Six Nations.

Grand days out in places we know.

But the finest contribution ever by Welsh rugby

was made in an alien environment,

about as far from home as you can go.

Every three or four years since 1888,

the best players of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales -

what we now call the British and Irish Lions -

have been going on tour to the major rugby-playing countries of the southern hemisphere...

New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

The Lions have won six times in Australia,

four in South Africa, with a drawn series in 1955,

but in New Zealand, only the once.

40 years ago, rugby tours were long.

The '71 tour would last from May to August -

15 weeks, 26 games in total.

Compare that with the Lions of 2009 - six weeks, ten games.

For me, Hong Kong is the one and only pause,

but flying to New Zealand is still a slog through the time zones.

40 years ago, the Lions' BOAC Boeing 707

stopped at Frankfurt, Rome, Tehran, Delhi and here,

and from here to Brisbane, Sydney,

and from Australia to New Zealand.

They played two games in Australia,

the first in Brisbane against Queensland.

They lost, prompting Queensland coach Des Connor

to describe them as "the worst Lions ever".

They beat New South Wales in Sydney, but nobody in New Zealand thought

there would be anything but a routine series win for the All Blacks.

I've been coming here for nearly 30 years

and in all that time, I've seen the All Blacks lose once -

one single game -

and even then, in 1993, they went on to win the series.

Touring New Zealand is an exercise in being crushed -

every time, bar one.

Rugby in 1971 was red.

BILL McLAREN: Edwards. Barry John.

Nicely along from Hall to John Dawes. This is Bevan inside Steel.

Beautifully tackled by Rea. Kicked on by John Taylor.

Booted on by Barry John. Can John make it?

This would be a remarkable score!

Delme Thomas again. Edwards to Barry John. Out to John Dawes.

John Williams, Gerald Davies.

Can Ian Smith get him? It's Gerald Davies for Wales!

Wales had won the Grand Slam in the Five Nations championship that year,

and now they supplied - for the first time -

the captain of the Lions, John Dawes.

They also supplied the coach, Carwyn James,

who was not the coach of his country and never would be.

Complex Carwyn, often troubled in life,

brought simplicity to rugby.

His weapon of choice...the brain.

Think about it. That's the important thing.

Every single one of you, think about it, think about it, think about it. It's a thinking game.

The coach of Llanelli sifted his way through the Welsh team.

He carefully researched the best of the rest of Britain and Ireland.

Mike Gibson, Ray McLaughlin and Willie John McBride of Ireland.

John Pullin and David Duckham of England.

Sandy Carmichael and Ian "Mighty Mouse" McLauchlan of Scotland.

New Zealand gave them no chance - but inside the mind of the coach,

thoughts were spinning, ideas were forming.

He was putting his Lions together, quietly.

A different kettle of fish

to any coach I'd ever met in my life before, cos, you know,

coaching was the bawling, snarling scenario.

But not Carwyn. He was very quiet and...

just very precise and accurate.

Eyes on the ball, John.

Well, Carwyn was really an amateur psychologist.

Not only was he a great coach - he treated every player individually.

I was very physical in our training,

and I was banned from training on Mondays.

So the weekends, for me, were great.

People like Derek Quinnell and Chico Hopkins had to train twice a day -

they were lazy and perhaps not as fit as they should be. He did treat every player as an individual.

I think Carwyn would have done a lot of homework.

I can't remember who was manager of Man United at the time -

I think it might have been Sexton or O'Farrell.

And I know he went up there for a couple of days,

just to watch what it was like to deal with players -

professional players - because you must...

Although we weren't professional players,

to all intents and purposes, we were for that three months.

GERALD DAVIES: We needed to play a 15-a-side game

that each individual player had a contribution to make to the whole.

We knew where New Zealand's strengths lay.

We knew the kind of patterned play that New Zealand had -

and it was very much a pattern. Er...

There was no real pattern to us - our game - I don't think,

other than to win the ball and to do the best we could with it

by running in attack against New Zealand. That was the plan.

That was the way that we believed as individual players,

as a group of players, how to play the game.

It's hard to say why it has always been so difficult to win here.

Perhaps New Zealand plays tricks.

Stunning New Zealand, full of sights and sounds

and smells that are totally alien.

It's beautiful, but it's also a country full of menace and danger.

Fall in there and you're dead.

And their rugby's a bit like that.

CHEERING

New Zealand were the kings.

And they thought their forwards were...the cream.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Pretty useful wheel, that, by New Zealand.

And here's the real power stuff.

Never worry about coming second to a pack they were facing,

and that's their mentality.

The philosophy in New Zealand was they were always better than us

and that, possibly, they were much more physical than we were.

I mean, they had a plethora of tremendous players.

Kirkpatrick was a fantastic player. Alex Wyllie was a fantastic player.

Sutherland was a great, great player - number eight -

and, er...Meads.

-COMMENTATOR:

-..by Colin Meads. The referee waving "play on".

And it's out.

That's what makes you want to play the game -

it's standing up to the best, or what you consider to be the best,

and, certainly, New Zealand's reputation was such that, er... at the time they certainly were.

CHEERING

-COMMENTATOR:

-He's over.

Rugby Union was invented in England, for young gentlemen.

A chap called Charles Monroe brought rugby here

when he returned from his English public school.

But soon, it was working New Zealanders who were playing.

Here, they loved the sport invented for gentlemen,

hated the amateurism designed to keep them out.

They toed the amateur line because in such geographical isolation,

there was a reluctance to break sporting links.

But those ties could be a little strained.

In Te Kuiti, King Country, where Colin Meads played his rugby -

he was an All Black for 14 seasons -

they would have been aware that over in England,

there was a rugby establishment that was ever so slightly suspicious

of the likes of Colin Meads playing their game.

Not a gentlemen.

And rough, tough Meads set about the representatives of that old establishment with relish.

Some of our rugby, in those days, was just "win at all costs",

and test matches and whichever you thought you could do,

whatever way you thought you could do it.

-COMMENTATOR:

-And it's getting like the old maul in goal in there.

Colin Meads trying to sort it out, but Willie John McBride,

Tom Lister, Sean Lynch...

This is an absolute tragedy.

You WERE the enforcer.

Well, that's what they say, but not...

You know, I was just one of them.

Well, no, I mean, you didn't just go out there

to hit somebody for the sake of hitting them.

You go and play the game, but if you jersey-pulled me, you'd get an elbow.

If you did it again it might be, "Do that again and I'll bloody hit you."

Yes, there was kicking, punching, gouging, fighting.

But again, I expected it and, as I said,

as long as all the players stuck together -

all the forwards stuck together - then, OK, we'll take it.

-COMMENTATOR:

-And this...

Not a pleasant sight to see in rugby.

We're going to show you.

You know, we're the colonials

and we're not meant to be good at this game,

and we'll show you that, you know,

we can play this game better than you.

There were ten games to play before the first Test -

five on the North Island and five on the South.

There were interesting sub-plots in these warm-up games for the four Tests.

The youngest Lion, 20-year old wing John Bevan,

scoring six tries in his first three games.

The weather, surprisingly fair.

The Lions were winning.

Nothing was going wrong at all,

but nothing was going particularly right.

It was steady,

but nothing was happening to make New Zealand sit up -

until they came to game five, their last of stage one on North Island.

They arrived in the capital.

-GARETH EDWARDS:

-Maybe Wellington were being talked about

as probably the best side in New Zealand at that time.

And to this day, it probably ranks as one of the best games

that I ever played in.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Gibson. Here's Dawes. The double round.

Past Cleeland.

Williams.

Bevan.

I just remember the quality of the running.

The wizardry and the silkiness of the back division,

with Mike Gibson and John Dawes and Barry.

That really stood out for me.

-COMMENTATOR:

-No-one seems to want it. This is Slattery.

Here's a chance. Out to Duckham.

Must score, I think, if he's got the pace. John.

We probably averaged about 25, 26.

And, so, probably just peaking nicely and, obviously,

we hit a bit of luck weather-wise and so on, and everything clicked.

And you could feel it from the start. You know, marvellous. Great feeling.

The Lions ran up nearly a half-century of points,

with Bevan scoring four tries.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Gibson.

Bevan.

Try to Bevan. Marvellous try!

You're the most important person in the world.

You know, make something happen.

That's the way I felt.

I've got the ball - something's going to happen here. Show what you can do.

Anything in a different-coloured shirt was the enemy.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Bevan.

Davies. Try on here. Pullin.

That victory was mind-blowing.

And it really taught, not only New Zealanders,

but the rest of the world, how rugby could be played.

-COMMENTATOR:

-There's McBride. There's Carmich, who got the try.

Look at this ball popping out. There's John, sliding through,

Gibson, the try. It'll make it 40 points. Around goes Gibson.

The grand prize in New Zealand's provincial rugby in 1971

was the Ranfurly Shield.

You won it by challenging the province that held the shield.

You travelled to their backyard,

and if you beat them you became the holders,

until a province came to your home and took it from you.

In late June 1971,

Canterbury had been beating all challengers for the Log o' Wood,

as the Ranfurly Shield was called, for nearly two years.

The Lions couldn't challenge for any provincial trophy,

but on the Saturday before the First Test,

they were facing the Ranfurly Shield holders in their backyard.

The Lions were playing with grace and technical superiority...

but something was about to come crashing at them.

The nastiest game I've ever seen or witnessed.

I think the New Zealand coach likened it to the Battle of Passchendaele, I think was the words he used.

It was horrendous. The ball was irrelevant.

It was the last game before the test.

I think the All Blacks knew which 15 were playing.

There was quite a few of us playing on the day.

And...I think that, er,

they wanted to see how tough we were.

And if we fall by the wayside in the meantime, so be it.

It wasn't a team thing.

It was just mentioned as a front row to front row thing,

or amongst the front row, that they weren't going to let anything happen.

And I was playing on the side of the scrum at that stage,

for Canterbury, and I remember one of our players - prop -

turning round and saying, "Get your bloody head up, otherwise something might happen."

And next thing, it did happen.

I was just worried about hooking the ball.

I didn't know anyone was boring in,

but I think Hoppy thought that Sandy was...

trying to get underneath him, and he just said to me,

"Well, if he continues this, I'm going to have to deal with it."

And he told him not to and then, two scrums later,

he must have done it again and that's where he got one black eye, anyway.

I don't know where the other one come from. But he...

He wasn't a pretty sight, no.

Sandy Carmichael was out of the tour.

The other first-choice prop, too.

Ray McLoughlin, realising what was happening, used - shall I say? -

the strength of, er, his hand,

and broke a finger.

Willie John says it pretty correctly -

that he had to be a complete fool hitting Alec Wyllie in the head.

Yeah, and, ironically, I mean...

It might sound a bit funny, but I was going in because I think him and Hamish McDonald

were having a disagreement.

I went in there to do something and next thing, bang! Ray hit me.

Hit me, sort of, just under the cheek.

Opened it up but, in those days, you didn't have to worry about the blood.

It helped team spirit. It was us against the rest of New Zealand.

OK, there were a few ex-pats living out there, but nevertheless,

it was a party of 30 and we had to survive in our own little cocoon,

and take on everything that New Zealand could throw at us.

-COMMENTATOR:

-This is Dawes, to Bevan. He's under...

Bevan one yard short. He's in!

Also, having survived that kind of physicality,

New Zealand themselves knew that we were no ordinary team -

that we were not going to be a team that knuckled under.

That we would be a team that would stay the course.

Ten matches played, ten matches won.

One battle fought, with the loss of two props.

Replacements were sent for Stack Stevens of England

and Geoff Evans of Wales.

Now for the first test against the New Zealand All Blacks.

There was a front row to rebuild, quickly.

Sean Lynch and Ian McLauchlan would pack down on either side of hooker John Pullin.

The Lions would still target the All Black scrum.

But Carwyn James was working on something else.

The Lions had just met the tough Canterbury fullback Fergie McCormick.

Carwyn was interested in meeting him again...

-COMMENTATOR:

-The long kick for McCormick. An important one.

McCormick was playing for Canterbury,

and he was a fullback the following week, from the first test in Dunedin.

He just said at half time, "Come over and sit next to me,"

which I did,

and he just said to me, in Welsh, "Diddorol?" - "Interesting?" -

and I said, "Yeah, it is interesting."

Nothing was said, but I knew what it meant and it was McCormick.

And I just looked at McCormick during that game -

where his positioning was, where he was likely to be...

Looked at his game, basically, for the next week.

Unfortunately, the following week, he never played for New Zealand again.

The first test was to be played back in Dunedin, at Carisbrook.

The crowd would be 45,000 strong, a strange blend of gnarled

old workers of the land,

coming down from the Otago hills, old Gold Rush country,

mixing with students from the University of Otago.

Together they trailed out of town through, well,

not exactly an urban wasteland, but through these scenes of mangling

and bending out of shape.

It's the perfect setting for rugby's original "house of pain".

Carisbrook is not the biggest stadium in New Zealand,

but it is the most raucous, thanks to those "scarfies",

the students wearing their scarves.

Those that paid, they filled those terraces there,

those that didn't went in their thousands

up on to the railway embankment.

It was announced that the three o'clock express, the Southerner,

would be slowing down, would whistle as it passed,

but it would not be stopping.

'We're quite near to the Antarctic because there's quite

'a stiff, southerly blowing for this, the first Test match

'which has caused tremendous interest here in New Zealand.

'More than 50,000 people will pack into the ground.

'Those people there are standing on Scottish Grandstand.

'A free view of the Test match.'

Went with about six others in a little Mini Minor.

Christchurch to Dunedin.

Fabulous time, but you were on the embankment at Carisbrook

and shoulder to shoulder with other people.

It was just amazing to be squashed there,

trying to peer over other people's shoulders.

But it was wonderful, wonderful atmosphere.

You wanted to go there to win against New Zealand.

That was the aim, the only aim.

You could have lost all the provincial games, it didn't matter.

Play the Test matches and beat New Zealand, that was the challenge.

That was the ultimate goal.

We knew that we were in for a real battle.

But we were the All Blacks and we were playing at home,

so we knew we were in with a shot.

-COMMENTATOR:

-A switch, John Taylor's switch.

13 there is wing three-quarter Ken Carrington,

one of seven new caps in this All Black side.

Captained for the first time by Colin Meads.

'I was struggling because I didn't know half the team.

'First year in the All Blacks,

'and you don't know whether to give them a roasting or...

'I was rather a brutal sort of a captain, put it that way.'

This is the mighty Meads himself.

'I must confess, when I first met Colin Meads, I didn't know how to address him.'

I think I called him "Sir" or something like that.

"No, mate," he said, "you're my team-mate. Call me pine tree.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Meads, the big man himself, the mighty Meads.

'King Meads of New Zealand, he was an awesome figure.

'Colin was the talisman, there's no doubt, of New Zealand rugby.'

Nicely back. Here he is once again,

the man himself, ten yards short of glory.

The slip in, Mervyn Davies forced over his own line.

I was convinced there was more than 15 All Blacks on the field.

Because all it seemed was we were running from one corner

to the other trying to tackle as many people as we could.

Number 1 prop forward, Brian Muller, 17 stone of him.

Good deflection at the back.

This is the new cap Peter Whiting.

Good attacking stuff from Burgess there.

It was wave after wave of All Black attacking rugby.

Sweeping up towards the Lions' line.

Beautifully out on the All Blacks' side.

Bryan Williams. First run of the game here for Carrington.

Willie John said the night before that they would come at you

and they would hit you with everything but the kitchen sink.

As Lynchy said, 20 minutes into the game,

I'm sure I saw a kitchen sink flying across the field.

New Zealand were immense.

Williams coming up, Bevan coming across, that's Bevan.

'They look to intimidate, they looked to crush if they can,

'and they look to pulverise up front.'

Going for the corner, he beats one man.

He's in. Touch, he's in touch.

I think what we surprised them with is that we didn't succumb.

This is the sort of rucking where New Zealanders get good ball.

That's it, stolen away by Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick straight through two men.

'Even when we had pressure on them the first 25 minutes,

'we couldn't score.

'If we had scored, it might have broken them, but it didn't happen.

'They held us out, they tackled us and kept us out.

'I guess it was a bit of a downer for us.'

We were thinking, "We're dominant," but we couldn't put them away.

And so, psychologically, they came back at us saying,

"We got a chance here, boys."

It's Willie John McBride opposite Meads.

Behind Willie John is Sean Lynch and Delme Thomas.

Hopkins to Barry John.

John Dawes, that's the big man.

That's John Bevan.

Number 8... A chance here - could be a try!

It's a try for the Lions by centre forward Ian McLauchlan.

Fantastic try, fantastic. 62 yards.

Or was it metres? I cant remember.

Ian McLauchlan of Scotland, the little prop,

the mighty mouse has done it.

What a moment for him. 3-nil to the Lions.

You could see the confidence in the Lions growing.

Barry started getting more possession,

started controlling the ball,

and demonstrated one of the finest performances,

the art of kicking a rugby ball, that I've ever witnessed.

Nice chip through that by Burgess to Barry John

McCormick,

ten yards from his own line.

Can I ask about Barry John?

Because you played against him,

it has gone down in legend that he was given the brief to stretch you.

He certainly stretched me a lot.

I seemed to be chasing the ball all day and not being able

to get my hands on it to do something with it.

John...

Beautifully flighted ball.

McCormick has got to turn.

Kill him.

I crossed him all over the place.

People always thought that with these players,

put them under pressure. Kick high kicks.

The up and unders. No. That's the last thing you want to do.

That means you're playing him into the game,

and the crowd will be with him.

The one thing you want to do is keep him quiet, and the crowd quiet.

So you just drop and trot - all the time.

It was a bit sticky as well, that particular day,

so it was easy to drop and shot, move him sideways all over the place.

In the end, you could see the crowd was getting at him now.

He was the local hero.

That was his home patch, that area.

Just a simple bit of thinking. Don't do the obvious.

Did some part of you secretly admire that, or were you just cursing him all the way?

Well, you know, you didn't go and kiss him, did you?

Well... He was just...

Yeah, he did worry me a wee bit.

Perhaps... I didn't verbally curse him,

I just thought, "That little prick over there.

"He's kicking another one across to the other side."

The Lions, they put chases on the ball also.

And left you no option either just to kick it straight out

or just be mauled up and tied up a bit.

Hopkins.

The boot of Barry John.

McCormick is there with Davies.

You have your bad days, I don't think I had that bad a day,

but, let's be honest, I didn't play for New Zealand again after that.

Back to Barry John, he knows what to do.

And that's it, the Lions have won the Test match!

What a magnificent victory it's been.

One of the rare moments of rugby history abroad.

And now this tour is well and truly on the road. What a day.

What a tremendous moment. Nine points to three the score.

We had two from this club going out to represent Great Britain in rugby.

The coach Carwyn and Barry, who really made his name.

Followed them avidly in the middle of the night.

We all met here, the team all came here

and we listened to it on the radio,

and it was an amazing feeling to be here.

It was exactly as if we were out there.

And Barry's mother would be shouting and giving advice

exactly as if she was talking to Barry.

She knew her rugby.

We had a long table in those days,

and we had laid out a rugby pitch.

Whenever there was a break,

they would put pint bottles of a bitter here, perhaps.

Then pint bottles of mild here, with different colours on them.

One would be the Lions, the other would be the All Blacks

and then they would picture this match on the table.

And move with the ball. They were there,

in that particular while, they were there.

And when they won in the end, of course, the whole place erupted.

THEY ALL CHEER

-Great show.

-Very good, Barry.

And many of us crawled back to bed about 6am,

and believe me, headaches the following day.

There were a lot didn't go back to bed!

Remarkably, given that they had won practically no ball,

the Lions were one up in the four-Test series.

They set off for three games before the second Test

down to Invercargill, up to Taranaki,

but they were winning and settled.

It wasn't the very first time the Lions had won

the opening Test of a series.

They had won back in 1930,

but this time it changed the dynamic of the tour.

New Zealand realised these Lions were a bit special.

-We travelled to most of the games.

-Really?

Gareth Edwards, Barry John, Mike Gibson, John Dawes,

do they live in the memory still?

Oh, yeah. Particularly Mike Gibson.

Gerald Davies, JPR Williams,

the lock from Willie John McBride, the front row.

The front row, unfortunately they went down to Canterbury.

-There was a bit of a mess there.

-It was a mess.

-Yes.

-Things went a bit AWOL.

-Canterbury said, wasn't their fault.

-No!

-HE LAUGHS

We have always had good scrums,

so that was taken for granted that we'd get good positions.

I think they started to play much more aggressively

in the backs, in particular.

There's an adage that the All Blacks remember their defeats more than their victories.

Well, they'd lost. They made changes for the second Test,

to be played back in Christchurch.

From places like this, Domett, in North Canterbury there would be a rugby migration

down to Lancaster Park to see if the All Blacks had been stung into action.

A single change was made on the Lions' side.

The young John Bevan was starting to feel the effects

of being away from home so long.

David Duckham came in on the left wing for the second Test.

-COMMENTATOR:

-On the left, the Lions with their usual kick-off.

The switch straightaway,

Gerald Davies ever alive and alert.

That's been the pattern of the Lions' play on this tour.

'As All Blacks were expected to win all the time,'

but if we don't, well, get on with it.

Sid Going.

Here's John Williams on the halfway line.

'They started off at great speed,

'lots of things were happening very quickly.'

See how they slip it back.

That's Sid Going. Mervyn Davies.

'Sid Going was electrifying,

'he was dictating the manner in which the game was being played,

'linking up with his back row, creating lots of problems.

'And he tore us to bits.'

-COMMENTATOR:

-Edwards. What a good tackle by Going.

Do you think Sid Going against Gareth Edwards was

one of the great head-to-heads?

Sure, yes.

Completely different players in some ways,

Gareth had that great pass and Barry right back,

and Sid wasn't regarded as a great passer, but he was a runner.

His centre of gravity was like this.

He was a dangerous, strong, nuggety runner.

I would have hated to play against him too often.

Oh! That was John and Edwards misunderstanding each other.

'Gareth Edwards was the type of person, if he wasn't in himself'

100 per cent fit, he wouldn't perform to his particular level.

Edwards looking blind.

You want to be at your best, you want to be as fit as you can be,

but when you're carrying injuries and you've got nobody else

to play in that position, you have to overcome them.

That's Edwards. A misunderstanding with John and Edwards there.

The management would also be pressurising you to get back,

wondering whether your injuries were psychological

and all that kind of thing which only added to the pressure.

Sid Going's ball.

Beautiful channelled heel.

On the blind-side, Burgess.

He's only one-yard there. What a good score.

What a brilliant score.

Bob Burgess scored a couple of tries,

I think that day, and I was involved in a penalty try.

35 yards out, this scrum, the Lions drive.

'I was about to score one and...

'Gerald jumped on my back and I carried him

'across the ground as the ball hit the turf.

'The referee went under the bar.'

He's getting a penalty try. Let's see it again, what happened.

'Bryan Williams, I can recall,

'scored a good try on the blind side.

'I remember being in the scrum'

and Sean Lynch was telling me when I'm butting heads with him,

"Is that the best sort of scrum you can put down?"

I said, "Have a look up, we've just scored."

This is constant pressure.

That's Sid Going.

Underneath it, the inevitable,

the brilliant,

the exciting John Williams.

He's got two outside,

Gibson's with him.

Gibson's got Gerald Davies, can he get there?

He's got 25 yards to go! What a run it is.

He's going under the sticks!

Perhaps the vivid image of that Test was the try of

Ian Kirkpatrick as he fended off tackler after tackler.

This is where the All Blacks are strong.

Look at that, Ian Kirkpatrick, the big man.

He's got 30 yards to go.

Can Barry John catch him? He can't.

What a try!

Oh, what a wonderful try.

We were on our way, and I suppose the way they came at me suited me,

because I delayed fending them.

When they start to go down and low-ish at you,

then you've got them.

You just have to turn round, delay it and push them off.

I had to change the ball over a couple of times.

Got a couple from each side.

It was just pretty lucky for me in that respect.

What a score by the great man Kirkpatrick.

What a try.

6 ft 2 and a half, 16 stone three,

the speed of a stag, what a magnificent try by Kirkpatrick.

We won reasonably easy, but not without a bloody battle, I might add.

You know, it was just a game that I guess, went our way.

It was a bit like what didn't happen at Dunedin happened at Christchurch.

Things went our way and we got on top of them

and managed to keep that margin right through the game.

On the 25, plenty of time for Cottrell to get that one clear.

And that's it.

What a great victory it's been for the All Blacks.

I would say, quite honestly,

that in the losing of

the second Test, I felt we had the winning of the series,

because so many things happened in that second Test,

I felt, we could improve upon

and our counter-attacking game by this time was pretty good.

Going hovering round, and John looking for the drop ball.

What a beautiful piece of play,

that's a great dummy for John Williams.

'We started playing the type of game

'that Carwyn had always said was going to win the series for us.

'When JPR and Gerald intertwined and ran from deep.'

This is Duckham on the outside.

What beautiful play.

'Gerald Davies scored a fabulous try and they had no answer to it.'

Can he get it in the corner? What a run!

Great score. What a try!

'That was the moment we realised we could win the series.'

Beautiful play, John Williams has got support on his right.

I think that was Carwyn's finest moment.

He said, "Boys, I now know we can win the series."

Although you lost, suddenly you were elevated. "That's good. Great."

The sense of optimism in defeat was complemented by victories in the next four provincial matches.

Christchurch was put behind them, forward they went.

John Williams.

Bevan. Gibson.

Williams.

Arneil. Davies.

Davies takes it ahead.

It's a fine try!

I don't think they'd seen somebody approach the game,

not only myself, Mike Gibson, JPR was running from the deep

and things like this, and somebody like Gerald,

flying down the right, right down to the touchline,

drop the shoulder, the sidestep,

and bouncing and accelerating,

scoring fantastic tries.

COMMENTATOR: Six yards outside the 25.

Lions have won it, it's good ruck ball.

Davies.

One man to beat for a hat-trick.

'Deep down, to some of us, anyway, we wanted the beautiful tries,

'you know - out to Gerald Davies, Gerald beats two men, links inside,

'John Taylor comes over there, switches it back, and, you know...

'The perfect, glorious try.'

COMMENTATOR: They've won the ruck. Dawes, Gibson.

Davies.

Wonderful rugby!

If the tour was immediately back on track,

there still had to be a re-think.

Carwyn James surveyed his options and made changes.

Gordon Brown, Broon of Troon, came into the second row.

And to contain Ian Kirkpatrick and Sid Going,

in came the uncapped Derek Quinnell of Llanelli.

Meanwhile, in the All Black camp,

coach Ivan Vodanovich was still letting victory sink in.

Psychologically,

you need to be brought back to Earth that this is another game

and another place, and so, hey, flick out of it, it's not going to be easy.

It's got to come from the coach, and we needed drilling, really,

but we never got it.

It wasn't quite Ivan Vodanovich's style.

Do you think that actually Carwyn James might have out-thought Ivan Vodanovich?

Oh, completely. Carwyn James was a brilliant coach.

He was a great thinker of the game,

and before they ever got to New Zealand he always said

there was a weak link in the New Zealand team,

but he wouldn't name him.

Well, we all thought it was us, you know.

Every player thought that, and particularly me,

because I was 35 or 36, and you think,

"Well, he's over the bloody hill," and that sort of thing.

So you had all those sort of things going on.

He was obviously a very smart cookie.

They were always going to be probing into our weaknesses,

and they did that well.

He was no fool, Carwyn James, that's for sure.

The Lions left the South Island for the last time

and crossed the Cook Strait to Wellington,

where they had played some of their best rugby.

But that was 15 games ago.

Now it was the third Test at Athletic Park,

with the series all-square.

COMMENTATOR: The third Test between the British Lions and New Zealand,

the most vital match that any British Lion player will ever play in his life.

Barry John.

Mike Gibson, Gerald Davies. See the swing of the hips!

That was a beautiful run.

He's on the ten-yard line, that's the half-way line.

The New Zealand 25. Covering there is Hunter.

Hunter... Beautiful tackle by John Taylor. Under the posts.

They must ruck it now. Can they get it?

Beautifully back to Barry John, looking for the drop-goal.

He's done it!

Barry John, consummate, but what about his half-back partner?

Edwards, into the open space.

The mighty Gareth Edwards had gone off injured in the first Test,

had been outplayed in the second.

By his standards he'd been below par, and we all knew,

and there's got to be a performance in him.

I remember talking to him a few days before, "Come on, Gareth, this is the one we want you.

"You've got to perform now." And he came out unbelievable.

Taylor, deflection. Edwards.

He's nearly under the posts, can he get there?

To Barry John, and Barry John has scored! What a try!

Knowing I was fully fit, ready for it, preparation had gone very well.

I wanted to prove that I could play the game.

He peeled beautifully off the back of the line,

ran straight at Bob Burgess, and Bob had long hair,

he was a hippy or a freak out in New Zealand cos everybody had short hair.

And Bob was there, and Bob came at him,

and Gareth got him with the right hand like that

and pushed him clean up,

and his hair went, and the spray that came out like that...

And Barry, of course, had read it perfectly, he was right on my shoulder.

Instead of running away from him,

I cut my line across to be alongside him.

That's all it was then, a little pop pass, and you skated in.

Edwards handing off Burgess, the strength, the determination,

the finesse of John at the end.

And the third Test, the guys talking in the team room before the game...

Everybody just thought, "This is a cakewalk.

"We can definitely beat these guys."

And then we did, we beat them very easily.

Five yards now from the All Black line. Can the Lions ruck this ball?

They can. To Edwards. Edwards is going. Davies is there!

Gerald Davies has scored a try.

Brian Lochore's deflection, Sid Going to Wayne Cottrell,

he's got with him Duncan.

Joseph on the burst.

Underneath the posts.

Back beautifully. Mains.

Joseph couldn't get it, fell over a dog.

We just didn't play well, we didn't gel.

The Lions got a sniff again and Barry kept putting it behind us,

and we were up against it, all right.

And it just didn't work for us.

Sid Going. It's the drive of the Lions, to Barry John.

The Lions have done it!

That's one of the great feats in rugby history

as far as British Lions are concerned.

It's been a day that none of the boys who have played on the field will ever forget,

and what a tremendous climax now the last Test in two weeks' time will be at Auckland.

The series could not be lost.

The All Blacks had been overturned at the very moment

when they were accustomed to taking full control.

I think in those days we probably

hadn't come up against a team like that British Isles team at that stage.

Barry John just carved us up.

Gosh, we went home in absolute depression

after that match in Athletic Park!

I'd never seen a display by an outside-half

over an extended period of time

that comes anything close to what he was able to do.

There was nothing that Barry didn't feel he couldn't do on that tour.

He just portrayed how simple the game can be,

and he was majestic, and it was a pleasure to watch him perform.

You're there to conduct the orchestra. You're the main playmaker.

You're pulling the strings.

Catch it and give it, and let the greyhounds go, let them loose.

It was a simple task, to be honest.

He had so much time on the ball,

he treated them with disdain in many ways.

No-one could get anywhere near him.

He was so light and he evaded the tackles.

He was...the...the king.

I didn't have a clue about line-out signals, what they were,

so if I'd been kidnapped and drugged and they'd said,

"Give us the line-out signals," I didn't know what the hell they were on about.

I didn't know we had any!

And my motto, and I used to tell the boys, "Just get me the ball.

"How you get it, I don't care. Just get me the ball."

Out there on the pitch I felt absolutely wonderful.

Free, I can do what the hell I want here. It's my little paradise, this.

Leave me alone. And I was alone,

so I could just go out and explain and declare yourself.

Marvellous feeling.

Who do you remember of the Lions of 1971?

I named a baby after Barry John?

-You never did?

-Yeah, I did.

Barry John Henry. It was just one of those things.

He was the second boy we had, he was a bit brand-new,

and Barry John just seemed to fit.

But yeah, it sounded like a good name at the time.

-They promoted Barry John a lot.

-Yeah.

King, King John.

Well, you might have called him King John, but...

The tourists headed north for the final three provincial games

and the last Test, always played at Eden Park in Auckland.

There were storylines to tie up -

to remain unbeaten in the non-Test games,

John Bevan to equal the try record

set by Tony O'Reilly of Ireland in 1959 -

17 tries for the Lions in New Zealand.

You are weary, you've spent three and a half months changing your towels twice a week,

you're wined and dined, you've got to go to receptions.

It's now taking its toll,

and certainly the last couple of weeks of the tour are hard.

It's like a final lap in a marathon, I suppose.

You know, you've done so far, you've worked all the way,

don't mess it up now. Come on, boys.

COMMENTATOR: Hello, everyone, from Auckland in the North Island of New Zealand.

And some 56,000 here in this garden-like setting at Eden Park

have paid more than 130,000 to see the 1971 Lions play this,

the most important and last game on New Zealand soil.

Eden Park.

They said a draw would be enough to win the series.

Manager Doug Smith, way back after their first defeat against Queensland,

had said that the Lions would win the Test series

won two, lost one, drawn one.

But in rugby, a draw is an unusual result.

In 100 tests since 1891, there have been just nine draws.

It was as improbable as JPR dropping a goal from 45 metres.

These things simply didn't happen.

COMMENTATOR: Davies, Barry John.

Mike Gibson on the ten-yard line.

That's a nice one into the box. Covering, Wayne Cottrell.

Full of experience.

That's what experience counts, knowing what to do,

and what glorious running. The inside pass.

It's a three-to-one situation...

It's more desperation, I suppose, really. All we could do was draw it.

I guess we knew we couldn't win it, fine, get on with it.

We've got to beat these guys and at least come away with a drawn series.

Sid Going. Number 8 forward Wyllie, the dummy.

Beautiful piece of work there.

This could be a try, but a great tackle, and a try for Cottrell.

We started pretty well that game,

and looked as if we could take it, but that was a great Lions side.

They had lots of really top players, lots of experience.

Edwards, two yards short. Can he get there? He's one yard short now.

Back on the Lions side. Over they are, and it's a score!

Was there an element of concern now that actually you might be

the first to go down to the Lions?

Oh, no, you don't go in with that concern, you go in,

"we're going to win," you know, straight out.

You know, I always think, we'd have scored a try

if it hadn't have been for JPR Williams.

I think he bowled Jazz Muller and nearly killed the poor bugger!

Pick-up, though, by Muller. John Williams was with him.

Well, that was a moment that I'd love to see again, the big man,

the biggest in the side, and the Lions full-back

the only thing between number 1, Muller, and glory and the line.

And then he drop-kicked a goal,

the only one he drop-kicked in his bloody life!

And it was from bloody 45 yards out,

it wasn't an easy drop-kick or anything like that,

and so, you know, there was a bit of magic in their team.

The ball was out near the touchline,

and we were throwing it infield, and we were going backwards, actually.

So I got the ball on the back foot, really,

and there were a couple of people outside,

and I didn't want to shovel bad ball on any further.

So I thought, "Well, let's have a go for it,"

and I just hit it perfectly,

and it was still rising when it went over the posts.

JPR decided that he'd be a drop-kicker.

-I don't think he'd ever got a drop-kick in his life, had he?

-No.

And he banged it over from damn halfway.

Gareth Edwards waiting for this one.

Duckham flinging it out.

John Williams, the full-back.

Oh, he turned well!

And he did it!

John Williams, number 15 there...

We're on the way to the test match, everyone was very tense.

So I sat up and said, "OK, guys, today I'm going to drop a goal."

And everyone just burst out laughing, it sort of cut the ice.

And that's why I turned to the reserves

in the stand after I did it, with the thumbs-up.

Number 15 there, John Williams, hit that one straight and true.

We're nearly there, we're nearly touching the winning line.

And so I just kicked to the corner and put them under pressure.

So we trapped them there for the last five or six minutes.

It wasn't glorious stuff, but as I said, that was a result job.

As Sid Going feeds this one. Cottrell with him going blind.

The knock-on, and that's it!

That's it!

A drawn match here, 14 points all at Eden Park.

But the British Lions have won the series.

When you've put something on a pedestal like this

and you actually crack it, it's a let-down in many ways.

"What's happened to the other side? I've climbed Everest."

There's nothing after Everest.

A great day, Carwyn,

in a life that has been a very distinguished one in rugby up to now,

but this must be one of THE moments?

Oh, yes, one of the truly emotional moments, I would have said.

The boys played superbly yet again today.

It's been a long journey, Cliff, it's been a hard tour.

24 matches here in New Zealand, and the boys have played well,

with spirit, in all these matches,

and I think they thoroughly deserved to win the series in the end.

Tortured, tormented Carwyn James,

a quiet man who once made the Lions roar, just the once.

He'd never coach them again, he'd never coach Wales.

But 40 years ago he and his team came here and were the best.

Because to win in this land of beauty and power and menace,

you have to BE the best.

I don't think that had ever happened in the history of rugby football,

to come back to London Heathrow

and to find there were thousands of people who had travelled

the length and breadth of this country of ours to greet us home.

It was an amazing moment,

to think that that's what we had meant to so many people.

I didn't realise at the time that we'd created history,

it hadn't hit home, if you like.

The fact that no British side had ever won a Test series in New Zealand prior to 1971.

And now we're talking 40 years on here,

nobody has ever won a Test series since then.

So it's pretty unique in the annals of British rugby.

We went to New Zealand and we played 24 games -

four Tests, 20 provincials.

And we only lost one game.

And that is a phenomenal achievement.

And that will never, ever be repeated.

If you had said 40 years ago that I'd be sitting here

talking about winning the series in '71,

I would never have believed you.

But it happened, and it's something to treasure.

I think, in life sometimes, it was meant to be.

It was meant to be,

and maybe we were the people who were meant to be to achieve it.

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