2005 British And Irish Lions Tour To New Zealand
In 2005 the British and Irish Lions (the Lions) rugby union team toured New Zealand for the first time since 1993, playing 7 tour matches against first and second division clubs from the National Provincial Championship series, 1 tour match against the national New Zealand Māori representative team, and 3 official test matches against the New Zealand All Blacks (the All Blacks). The Lions lost all 4 games to the national Māori and All Blacks sides, with their 0-3 test match record against the All Blacks marking the first time in 22 years that the Lions lost every test match on tour.
This tour marked the first time that the team toured under the name of "British and Irish Lions". It followed the 2001 British Lions tour to Australia and preceded the 2009 British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa.
The team was managed by former England international Bill Beaumont, coached by former England coach Sir Clive Woodward, and originally captained by Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll. O'Driscoll suffered a controversial tour-ending injury two minutes into the first test and England captain Martin Corry took over the captaincy for the remainder of that match. Wales captain Gareth Thomas took over as captain for the final 4 games of the tour.
The poor test results of the 2005 Lions, despite having one of the most experienced playing squads and the largest management team of any Lions tour, led to criticism of Woodward, particularly his selection policy, and prompted commentators to question the future of the Lions.
Read more about 2005 British And Irish Lions Tour To New Zealand: Schedule, Tour Squad, Additions To The Squad, Management, Lions Anthem
Famous quotes containing the words british, irish, lions, tour and/or zealand:
“In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it’s modern architecture.”
—Nancy Banks-Smith, British columnist. Guardian (London, February 20, 1979)
“Irishness is not primarily a question of birth or blood or language; it is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually of being mauled by it.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen would draw them to look like oxen, and each would make the gods bodies have the same shape as they themselves had.”
—Xenophanes (c. 570–478 B.C.)
“Do you know I believe that [William Jennings] Bryan will force his nomination on the Democrats again. I believe he will either do this by advocating Prohibition, or else he will run on a Prohibition platform independent of the Democrats. But you will see that the year before the election he will organize a mammoth lecture tour and will make Prohibition the leading note of every address.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Teasing is universal. Anthropologists have found the same fundamental patterns of teasing among New Zealand aborigine children and inner-city kids on the playgrounds of Philadelphia.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)