Sean Fitzpatrick recalls it as the worst week of his life while conversely it featured one of the highlights of Warren Gatland’s playing career. It was the seven days between the British & Irish Lions’ 20-7 victory in Wellington in 1993 – until Saturday the last time the tourists have beaten New Zealand – and the subsequent Black-lash at Eden Park. And it comes sharply into focus with all roads leading to Auckland once more.
Fitzpatrick had anticipated a flaying at the hands of the New Zealand press, and so it materialised with a venom that makes clowns look, somewhat fittingly, like child’s play. Gavin Hastings, the Lions captain on that tour, recalled to the Telegraph: “I remember Sean Fitzpatrick telling me after the second Test, ‘Just wait until you read the papers.’ He was right; they tore into the All Blacks and, once they saw that, some of the more inexperienced British journalists and some of the more inexperienced players in the Lions squad thought that was the series wrapped up and we would now have the wind at our backs.”
As it was, New Zealand clinched the series with a 30-13 victory – Fitzpatrick and Co upping the intensity to levels the Lions could not live with despite the tourists taking a 10-0 lead after Scott Gibbs’s early try. “We simply could not match their onslaughts and we spent the game playing catch-up rugby,” the Lions head coach, Ian McGeechan, said.
The parallels between then and now are plentiful but the manner in which the Lions found themselves heading to Auckland with the series all square was somewhat different. In the opener the tourists felt they had been robbed by a questionable refereeing decision by the Australian Brian Kinsey, which gave Grant Fox the chance to kick the All Blacks to a 20-18 victory. The next Test in Wellington the Lions took their vengeance as Rory Underwood’s blistering finish in the left‑hand corner lit up an emphatic win for McGeechan’s side, inspired by the magnificent Ben Clarke.
For New Zealand there were no red cards to point to and their coach, Laurie Mains, made his feelings clear. Having been granted behind-the-scenes access to the All Blacks at the time for a thesis, Robin McConnell recorded Mains’s speech to his players in his book Inside The All Blacks: “I have never been so bloody humiliated as to see Poms dominating an All Black team – Poms, not as fit as you ... all over the top of you ... Do you accept losing a Test match? I don’t. We need guts, we need good Kiwi toughness and heart. Above all, you’re All Blacks. What are you going to do about it?”
Unlike this week where the Lions have no midweek match for the first time during this tour, McGeechan’s side faced Waikato on the Tuesday and were thumped 38-10 with Gatland lining up at hooker and scoring a try. By that stage the divisions between the Test side and the “dirt trackers” were obvious. As Hastings put it: “At the end of the tour there were two distinct parties.”
That, in turn, meant that the side which had triumphed in Wellington – and that included 11 Englishmen – was unchanged at Eden Park. Whereas the All Blacks, with ears ringing, made the necessary adjustments, notably nullifying Martin Bayfield at the lineout, the Lions went sideways as Jon Preston, Fitzpatrick and Frank Bunce, plus 15 points from the boot of Fox, did the damage. “That we won the final Test was entirely down to the fact that we each knew we wouldn’t be able to face the country if we lost,” said Fitzpatrick. Gatland can expect a similar revenge mission on Saturday.
