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What Are the Origins of the British & Irish Lions? Uncovering Rugby’s Most Historic Tour

In 1888, the legendary cricketers Alfred Shaw and Arthur Shrewsbury devised a grand sporting tour to Australasia and gathered a group of rugby players to represent the “English Footballers” or the “Shaw and Shrewsbury team”. Although the team was mostly comprised of English players, the inclusion of one Welshman, three Scots, and one Irishman made this all-star side the first iteration of the British and Irish Lions.

The 22-man team boarded the SS Kaikoura in Plymouth and embarked on a gruelling 46-day, approximately 14,000-mile-long journey, through rough seas and oppressive storms, to Dunedin, New Zealand. Upon their arrival, they would spend the next five months touring the islands, competing in 35 games of rugby and 19 games of Victorian Rules Football (the precursor to Australian Football) against local Aussie and Kiwi sides.

After their debut games in New Zealand – a double-header against Otago RU – forward mainstay Robert Seddon remarked upon the teams’ differing styles of play and approach to the game in a local newspaper, stating that his opponents were “heavy men and good scrummagers” and claiming that the English Footballers “do not believe in too much scrummaging and try to make the game fast and open”. This began to set out one of the characteristics that would come to define the British and Irish Lions in their early years – their exciting, fan-friendly style of play. The first game attracted more than 10,000 spectators and was described as "the fastest and hardest fought game ever seen in Otago" by the New Zealand Herald.

An impressive start to the tour saw the English Footballers win five and draw one of their first six, but they would record their first-ever defeat in New Plymouth – a close 1-0 loss to Taranaki. Just eight days later, they would face more disappointment, losing 4-0 to Auckland RU. However, they would go on to avenge both defeats on their return to New Zealand, ending the tour with a positive record against every single side they faced.

Who was the first-ever British & Irish Lions captain?

As one of only four international players taken on the tour, the aforementioned Robert Seddon was the first-ever captain of the British & Irish Lions. But, around the midpoint of the tour, as the team made their way up the east coast of Australia from Sydney to Brisbane, tragedy struck. On a rest day sculling on the Hunter River, Seddon separated from the group to row upstream on his own and was later found drowned. The three-cap England international was memorialised by the Newcastle and Sydney Rugby Unions and later immortalised in the World Rugby Hall of Fame as the first-ever British & Irish Lions captain. Cricket legend Andrew Stoddart would take over the captaincy until the end of the tour.

 

Was the 1888 British & Irish Lions Tour a Success? Wins, Losses, and Rugby’s Legacy

The tour was ultimately a financial failure and became mired in debate about professionalism in the sport at the time, but it was an undeniable success from a sporting perspective. The team recorded an impressive record of 27 wins, six draws and two losses in 35 rugby games, going undefeated in Australia and scoring 300 points to their opponents’ combined 101. Perhaps even more impressively, they managed to win six games of Victorian Rules Football against the locals, despite most of the team having never played before.

Most importantly, the English Footballers were trailblazers who helped to popularise the tradition of touring in rugby and paved the way for their successors to compete against international competition and spread the sport to all corners of the globe.

Get ready to show your support and relive that first tour at the Lions 1888 Cup. Shop Lions rugby kits and get behind the team.

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