Brendan Gallagher recalls the early and outstanding All Blacks and Australian tours

It’s more than a little ironic that the All Blacks – famed for their teamwork, devotion to the jersey, comradeship and projection of all that is good in New Zealand – were founded only after a failed mutiny in the Southern Ocean.
The trail-blazing 1905-6 tour to Britain was a massively ambitious, expensive and prestigious project but initially there was seething disquiet within the squad. In the ‘final trial’ for selection the North Island had caused a massive shock by hamm...