Brendan Gallagher on the famous Lions bolters

As far as I can determine the term “bolter” was originally an Australian equine expression used to describe a horse that unexpectedly wins at long odds – as in “Bloody hell, mate, where did that bolter come from?” – and that is certainly how it is used in rugby circles in Lions seasons. Who can bag a place in the tour party rather against the odds and expectations?
The textbook Lions bolter is probably the uncapped player, a long shot who comes from so far back that his national selectors haven’t yet fully clocked his talents. I would also extend that, however, to players who have perhaps once gained a handful of caps but had been ruthlessly discarded and ignored by their national team only to get the call to arms from the Lions.
Lions bolters only really came into existence after World War II. Before that, although some of the Lions parties were much stronger than others, there was always an element of who was available for the five or six-month odyssey or even who could afford it, rather than rigorous selection on merit. Only from 1950 onwards does the maverick out of the blue selections hold real interest.
Many of the best bolters have been Englishmen, possibly because England selectors over the years were so world class at either messing around talented players or ignoring them altogether.
King of the Bolters for me has to be John Bentley on the hugely successful 1997 Lions. His unlikely story is well worth revisiting, not least because it will surely never be repeated Bentos, originally from the Otley club, won two caps on the wing as a 21 year old for England while playing for Sale before quitting Union to play Rugby League for Halifax and Leeds with two appearances for Great Britain RL in there as well. He was a very decent League player but not a stellar name and once Rugby Union became open he was one of the first League players to return to its ranks, signing for Newcastle in the old Division One.
In that 1996-97 season Bentley played all his rugby in that lower league and was seemingly nowhere near the England set-up, yet in an absolutely inspired left-field selection – mainly at the behest of tour manager Fran Cotton and coach Ian McGeechan – they plumped for the forgotten Englishman.
Yes he had enjoyed a profitable season of 23 tries in 18 games but Bentos was playing in a fully professional side packed with seasoned internationals against part-timers. The excellent Andy Smallwood scored 17 League tries for Coventry that season but I don’t recall his name ever being mentioned in Lions despatches.
And, ironically, one or the few high profile games Bentley had to state his case was the match against Coventry at a packed Coundon Road when he was sent off for punching Smallwood in the first half as Newcastle were also famously given a bloody nose and beaten 19-18?
Yet still the Lions picked him. Why?
Both Cotton and McGeechan knew League inside out and had seen the strong-running Bentley at his best over the years. But it was more than that.
Bentley never backed down or took any nonsense and that was the kind of individual they were looking for in South Africa. They also badly wanted a small elite hard core of recent arrivals from League who knew what it meant to train and play six days a week in a professional manner – hence the equally inspired selections of Allan Bateman, Scott Gibbs and Scott Quinnell.
They really struck gold, though, with Bentley whose enthusiasm and energy sparked up every training session. He was the life and soul, nevermore so than when his remarkable weaving 65-yard solo try, beating seven defenders, helped turn possible defeat into glorious victory against the Gauteng Lions.
Victory that night a couple of days after the Lions had been beaten by Northern Transvaal prevented a major dip in the Lions morale.
That 1997 tour party took a couple of punts. Leicester centre Will Greenwood was then uncapped by England and although missing out on a Test spot for the Lions in South Africa went very nicely before suffering a concussion against the Free State in Bloemfontein.
Barry Williams had just one Wales cap – a strange September friendly against France in 1996 – and proved a good tourist while the long-striding Nick Beale was surplus to requirements throughout the Five Nations for England but again did well with the Lions, scoring a hat-trick against the Junior Springboks in the week before the first Test.
Back to English bolters who made the Test team. Jeremy Guscott, Peter Dixon and Dickie Jeeps are a pretty formidable trio by any criteria. Guscott did not appear in the 1989 Five Nations but was on fire for Bath domestically, especially in the Cup where it was clear a special talent had arrived.
When Will Carling withdrew from the ’89 Lions tour to Australia Guscott – his replacement – was still uncapped although he did play against Romania in Bucharest in mid-May and scored a hat-trick. Come the Lions tour he made an outstanding impact in the second and third Tests,
The England selectors moved in mysterious ways back in the Sixties and Seventies but even by their standards they got it badly wrong with Dixon who throughout his club career with Oxford University and Harlequins looked the real McCoy as well as countless stand-out appearances for Cumbria in the County Championship which counted for much in those days.
Dixon waited in vain for the England call-up but the Lions selectors, nudged by Carwyn James who had seen him play for Harlequins against Llanelli, were certainly on the case and in April 1971 the call came to tour New Zealand.
Later that month the England selectors, rather shamefacedly, picked him to play for an England XV against a Presidents XV to celebrate the RFU‘s 100th anniversary and to this day the argument rages whether that was a capped match or not.
Whatever, Dixon proceeded to play in three of the four Lions Test matches during the glorious march around New Zealand, but right to the end of his career England had their doubts. Dixon finished in 1979 with 25 England caps but his contemporaries and peers will swear it should have been double that.
The 1971 tour, rather like the 1997, tour included a number of players who could be called punts. Rumbustious young Llanelli back-five player Derek Quinnell was uncapped by Wales but played a big part in the third Test which the Lions won in Wellington while scrum-half Ray ‘Chico’ Hopkins was another to grab his opportunity.
Being the back-up to Gareth Edwards, Hopkins only ever played once for Wales – an outstanding contribution off the bench to a famous Wales comeback against England at Twickenham in 1970 – and he also enjoyed the opportunity of contributing to history in the first Lions Test.
On that occasion, Edwards went off with a torn hamstring after just nine minutes and Hopkins again produced a stormer. Remarkably they were Hopkins’ only two appearances in Test rugby and, acknowledging that the long-term presence of Edwards was always going to thwart him, he turned professional.
The young Jeeps, meanwhile, was always heading to the top but the complication in his case was that Johnny Williams was playing very well for England in 1955 and Maesteg and Wales scrum-half Trevor Lloyd was tipped to also vie for Test selection in South Africa.
Behind the scenes, however, there were developments. In December 1954 Northampton had beaten a stellar Cardiff side containing all their big names including Cliff Morgan 22-9 in a memorably open game of rugby for those days, the kind of match that would be commonplace on the High Veldt in the summer of 1955.
Welsh great Haydn Tanner was watching the game in the stands and immediately alerted the Lions selectors to Jeeps whom he considered the man of the match. Then, after Jeeps’ surprise inclusion in the tour party but before they left for South Africa Jeeps and Morgan were deliberately paired together for a Crawshay’s XV touring Cornwall.
The Anglo/Welsh partnership was an immediate success and Morgan – a surefire starter for the Lions – made it quite clear he wanted the uncapped Jeeps as his half-back partner come the Tests. Ultimately Jeeps finished up winning 13 Lions Test caps, second only to Willie John McBride.
Wales, with Hopkins and Quinnell to the fore, also has their fair share of bolters with lock Delme Thomas being one of the more interesting cases. The muscular, athletic Thomas didn’t make the Wales XV in 1966 but his performances for Llanelli were impressive enough to earn a tour place with the Lions and, after the tourists were routed up front in the first Test, he was promoted to a starting role as lock in the second Test.
Thomas was arguably the Lions MoM on his Test debut but then came one of those moments of insanity the Lions occasionally engage in.
In an effort to restore captain and lock Mike Campbell-Lamerton to the starting XV the Lions spent a week’s training with their skipper packing down at prop.
Eventually they had to concede it wasn’t working but the idea of beefing up the front row with a lock wouldn’t go away and incredibly they then asked the callow Thomas to play tighthead in the third Test with Campbell Lamerton resuming locking duties. Under the circumstances the stalwart Thomas did remarkably well but was then cruelly dropped for the fourth Test. Selectors.
Other bolters from the valleys include the unfortunate Stuart Lane, the lightning quick Cardiff flanker, who was going to be the Lions secret weapon in 1980. Lane was rarely required by Wales and made his only two Championships start in March 1980 following Paul Ringer’s ban for his sending-off against England.
In that short time the Lions selectors confirmed the good impression he had made playing for Cardiff and he was on the plane and straight into the first game of the tour against Eastern Province.
Alas within 30 seconds he had twisted a knee badly, incurring an ACL injury that effectively ended his career. The shortest Lions playing career ever recorded.
The 1977 squad was top heavy with Welsh and included no fewer than three uncapped Welsh players – Elgan Rees and two scrum halves who, like Chico Hopkins, had found their way blocked by the remarkable Edwards. Alun Lewis never did get to play for Wales and remained uncapped by the Lions but Brynmor Williams proved a doughty campaigner and started in the first three Tests. He made his Wales debut on tour in Australia the following year.
As for Scotland and Ireland not so many, but I’ve always been intrigued by the Canadian Graham Budge who appeared for one season playing for Scotland in the 1950 Championship which was enough to earn selection for the Lions trip to New Zealand where he played in one Test.
After that he settled back in British Columbia and some reports have him playing, at 39, against the Lions in 1959 as they made their way back from New Zealand via Vancouver.
Finally, there are those who will tell you that Tony O’Reilly was a bolter. Though nothing could ever disguise his star quality he was picked as an
18-year-old for the 1955 Lions on the strengths of four games in the 1955 Championship – three defeats and a draw – in which he scarcely touched the ball.
There was no Test match evidence as such to go on, just intuition, and on this occasion the Lions selectors were gloriously vindicated.