‘I was very unpopular with a farmer,’- 5 infamous Lions tour stories

When England’s Austin Healey began poking fun at a swollen and bruised Ronan O’Gara during the 2001 Lions tour of Australia, a young Brian O’Driscoll snapped and beat the lard out of him.

Here is legendary hooker Keith Wood’s version of events.

“Austin came in and he was being an unbelievable pain in the a**e. I mean beyond all belief. He was touching ROG’s face and saying ‘c’mom Rog, let’s have a little boxing match.,, c’mon c’mon’.

“ROG just said ‘p**s off, just leave me alone, get away from me’ and then suddenly this little voice peeps in… ‘I’ll have a bit of that,’ says Drico and they put on a pair of boxing gloves and Drico beat the living crap out of him."

The former prop joined Alex Payne and Mike Tindall on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby podcast as he shared a fantastic story featuring Gavin Hastings, Scott Gibbs and Nick Popplewell in Rotorua.

The four of them enjoyed a few beers at the one pub in the area and on the way back Leonard made himself very unpopular with a local farmer. One of the best Lions tour stories.

The British Lions were given a fearful runaround by the Orange Free State outside half during a particularly traumatic 1980 tour match. In the end, Lions centre Ray Gravell could stand no more.

As the South African danger man made yet another break, the Welsh tough guy hit him with a fearful tackle long after he had parted with the ball. The referee angrily called the Llanelli star over and proceeded to dish out the severest of reprimands. ‘’That was the latest tackle I’ve ever seen!’’ he stormed.

Replied wisecracking Gravell: ‘’Sorry ref, I got there as quickly as I could.’’

Following a long drinking session during the 2017 Lions tour the hooker was starting to fade, so James Haskell said: “Come on old fella, let’s have a little lie down.”

He continued: “I wheeled in the hospital bed that had been Jack Nowell’s place of rest the night before, and we put Rory on it and tucked him in, so that he looked like a corpse. Within about 30 seconds he was asleep and happily snoring away. 

Then I said, “Why don’t we wheel him outside and leave him on the street?” We pushed him through the hotel, sniggering like children, but when we got him outside I said, “Why don’t we push him down that hill?” 

‘Our Lions hotel was right on top of a huge hill in Auckland that sloped down for miles to the sea. Without waiting for a response, I kicked the back of his bed and off he went. For the first 10 seconds or so, we all thought this was one of the funniest things we’d ever seen but as the hill became steeper, the bed picked up speed and panic set in.

‘People were screaming because they thought he was a runaway corpse that had rolled out the back of some undertaker’s ambulance. Rory was just very confused.’

One of the best rugby social story ever.