Travelling with the Lions

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  Hamilton, New Zealand
Saturday, June 11, 2005

So we arrived in the land of the long white cloud and straight away recreated the messiness that was prevalent in Milhouse with a session that lasted for 3 days and nights with Anna and Regan. We had everything there, thrills, spills and incontinence and even a little Dodgeball related Adidas ad showing at all times on TV. They are in great form for anybody who knows them and asking for you all. Especially Dave. Regan wants another game of lovely hands. My brother Eddie arrived after the weekend so now we can get the show on the road.

Then it was straight away to Rotorua or stinky pooa as Benny calls it. I was lucky I had a banging head cold so I couldnt really smell the sulphur but some of the Guinness farts that were emitted in the pubs gave even that noxious odour a run for it's money. And the Guinness here is great, suprising really, but feckit sure aren't we tearing the arse out of the taps. One thing though, I am pretty sick of being mistaken for a member of the Barmy Army, the band of supporters who normally follow the English cricket team. Barmy my arse, the only thing they are good at is self promotion. They are on all the news programmes and in all the papers so us and a few Welsh lads decided to come up with the Celtic Massive. Sweet as, as they say around these parts.

While out in Hennessys (original I know) in Rotorua, the Irish Lions and a few other Lions walked in. I got to see the shite that BOD has to take off people but he took it all in his stride. Lads asking for his tie or shirt or one lad even asked for his phone number. Arse to the wall brian. POC was fairly locked but I wasnt going to stand anywhere near him for fear of him falling and taking out a small army of people.

So the first two games didn't really go to plan but we got the results we wanted.
Irish watch:
Hayes will be lucky to get another run out, ROG is 3rd choice kicker out of 3 at the moment, Byrne will make a few midweek sides and might make the bench for the test, POC and Drico are test starters, Shaggy, if he continues his form might join them, Murph is behind Lewsey at the moment but class will always rise, Hickie will be a mid week player for the series and D'Arcy might be joining him and DOC is a conundrum, I would have him there or there abouts for the tests but you never know. He played great stuf on wednesday. The easterbunny might be the one who comes from nowhere to nail down a test spot but I doubt it with Hill on he test team at the moment.

Best memory so far is the cross kick that Shaggy collected then took out two men while he offloaded to Murph to score in the corner against Taranaki. It happened right in front of us and it was amazing. Everyone I talk to is asking me about Shaggy and the Kiwis reckon he will play a part in the tests.

We have seen a lot of the north island from travelling around, so much now that we haven't had to use a map between towns such is the familiarity with the roads. We went caving in Waitomo this morning and the lads were swimming in hot springs last week. We are off to Taupo on monday but for now we will watch the NZ Maoris take on the Lions in Hamilton tonight. It should be a hard match but the Lions pack is huge so I wouldn't think we will be in trouble in the scrum which will ease the pressure on our backs. I wouldn't expect a 91-0 hammering like the All Blacks gave to Fiji last night. But in fairness Fiji were atrocious.

We are crossing into the south island on the 17th where everybody tells me there are very embarassed brass monkeys hobbling about. So wrap up warm is the battle call for next week.

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