B
Bullitt
Guest
Brian Moore has some wonderful memories of the victorious Lions tour of Australia in 1989, but the former England hooker describes his visit to New Zealand with the 1993 Lions as a "gloomy experience".
The tour lacked team spirit, and "the iron will to succeed never existed in a large section of the party" Moore revealed in his autobiography. "It is so easy, when bad apples are in the barrel, you become enticed. You can get infected by the kind of atmosphere which prevailed on that tour and I'm not absolving myself.
"I was chosen on the bench for the Otago game and the day before the game three of us went for lunch. We were soon joined by three others. We ordered a conservative single bottle of wine between us, had one glass each and the bottle was empty. Three players left. The remaining three of us had another eight bottles between us, staggered back to the hotel as dark fell - then staggered straight into a teem meeting feeling completely out of it.
"I wasn't playing in the match and I didn’t get called up as a replacement during the game (which the Lions lost 37-24), but that is no excuse. I shouldn't have become involved.
"There were sporadic efforts during the tour to get the team off the beer. Geoff Cooke [tour manager] called a meeting with the senior players, saying he thought there was a problem, that the boys were drinking too much... but the message never got through. The midweek team all but disintegrated onto a giant ****-up!
"A Lions team needs complete concentration. In 1993, concentration wavered fatally.
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That's what we like to hear, proper tour stories involving alcohol. So who has tour tales to add??
The tour lacked team spirit, and "the iron will to succeed never existed in a large section of the party" Moore revealed in his autobiography. "It is so easy, when bad apples are in the barrel, you become enticed. You can get infected by the kind of atmosphere which prevailed on that tour and I'm not absolving myself.
"I was chosen on the bench for the Otago game and the day before the game three of us went for lunch. We were soon joined by three others. We ordered a conservative single bottle of wine between us, had one glass each and the bottle was empty. Three players left. The remaining three of us had another eight bottles between us, staggered back to the hotel as dark fell - then staggered straight into a teem meeting feeling completely out of it.
"I wasn't playing in the match and I didn’t get called up as a replacement during the game (which the Lions lost 37-24), but that is no excuse. I shouldn't have become involved.
"There were sporadic efforts during the tour to get the team off the beer. Geoff Cooke [tour manager] called a meeting with the senior players, saying he thought there was a problem, that the boys were drinking too much... but the message never got through. The midweek team all but disintegrated onto a giant ****-up!
"A Lions team needs complete concentration. In 1993, concentration wavered fatally.
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That's what we like to hear, proper tour stories involving alcohol. So who has tour tales to add??