The Lions used to go out of their way to make friends in little towns not much bigger than villages. Now that they have to make money instead, missionary trips to places like Westport in the South Island of New Zealand and Aliwal North on the Orange River in the Free State have gone, never to return.
Over the last 60 years of amateurism, the Lions put their evangelical zeal in the hands of 14 captains. Half of them were Irish from all four provinces: Sammy Walker, Robin Thompson, Willie-John McBride from Ulster, Karl Mullen, Ronnie Dawson from Leinster, Munster’s Tom Kiernan and Ciaran Fitz...