THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW
THE Lions used to replace their props during Test matches once every 29 years, long enough for at least ten blue moons to have come and gone.
Jason Leonard’s last-minute entry in Cape Town for the magnificent Tom Smith against the Springboks in 1997 ended a sequence of propping ever-presence stretching back to the same stadium in July 1968 when Delme Thomas responded to the early exit of England‘s tighthead Mike Coulman.
Throughout the three decades in between those rare front row changes, the Lions completed seven Test series – four in New Zealand, two in South Africa, one in Australia – without any of their starting props missing a single minute of action.
Graham Price takes pride of place for doing more than anyone to create the aura of immovability. For sheer stamina alone, the Pontypool tight-head justifies consideration as the nearest thing to a front row version of the revered long-distance runner Emil Zatopek, the only athlete to win the 5,000-metres, 10,000-metres and marathon at the same Olympiad (Helsinki, 1952).
Price commands equal reverence for what he achieved as a Lion: 12 consecutive Tests, eight of them against the All Blacks, a record which will never be challenged let alone surpassed because they don’t make Test props like Graham Price any more.
Nobody has come closer to emulating him than Tadhg Furlong but even the best tighthead of his generation falls a long way short when measured against his Welsh predecessor. In nine consecutive Tests, the Irishman has yet to finish one, not through any fault of his own.
Coaches decree that he and his breed are not made to go the distance because they have the man-power at their disposal to afford such a luxury, hence the discrepancy between Furlong and Price in minutes per Test: 60 against 80. The indecent rise in substitutes to eight has a lot to answer for.
They were introduced in 1968 as ‘replacements,’ the International Rugby Board having decreed that a maximum of two per match and then only to replace injured players. Delme Thomas’ early appearance in the third Test against the Springboks that summer made him the first replacement Lion.
“Welsh tighthead Graham Price takes pride of place for creating the aura of immovability”
In between their fair share of emrbarrassing defeats, the Lions can lay claim to many astounding feats, none more so than a contributory factor to their most successful tours: New Zealand in 1971, South Africa three years later.
Throughout their four-Test winning series against the All Blacks, the Lions started and finished every one with the same Scottish-Irish props – Iain ‘Mighty Mouse’ McLauchlan and Sean Lynch. Over the course of 26 matches, they completed 18 of them without replacing a single player. Of the nine occasions when injury demanded a change, only one applied to the front row, Delme Thomas for Lynch against the Maoris.
Even when the Lions took a fearful physical beating from the so-called Canterbury ‘butchers’ a week before the first Test, they refused to replace either or both props. Scotland‘s Sandy Carmichael was still there at the end despite a cheekbone fractured in five places.
Ireland‘s Ray McLoughlin was still there, too, his hand broken in the course of objecting to a finger being poked in his eye. Ironically, the referee who turned a blind eye to the pain inflicted all around him, ‘Doc’ Humphrey Rainey, was a renowned anaesthetist.
In South Africa three years later, the Lions again went through the mayhem of a four-Test series with their entire front row defiantly intact; Fran Cotton and McLauchlan on either side of the hooker, Bobby Windsor.
Over the course of 22 unbeaten matches, ‘The Invincibles’ needed no more than nine substitutions, almost as many as routinely made by every team in every Test. Only one of those precious few changes affected the front row, Cotton replacing Carmichael 12 minutes from the end of the opening fixture, against Western Transvaal in Potchefstroom.
No prop has lasted, or been allowed to last, the full 80 in a Lions Test since Mako Vunipola against Australia in Melbourne 12 years ago. No pair of Lions’ props have done so since Gethin Jenkins and Julian White during the opening Test against New Zealand in Christchurch in 2005, the one forever disfigured by Brian O’Driscoll’s brutal elimination after 45 seconds.
Jenkins followed up with another 80-minute performance in the second Test, White likewise in the third. As a pair they came closest to emulating their predecessors on the first professional Lions tour, the late Tom Smith and Paul Wallace ever-present for all but 60 seconds of the three South Africa Tests against the World Cup holders.
In Australia, Pierre Schoeman stood alone in striking a blow for all those who went before him by doing something which they took as a matter of course. Scotland’s loosehead remained immune to substitution throughout the midweek match against a hotch-potch Australia-New Zealand XV at Adelaide, a distinction dictated by the need to protect Andrew Porter and Ellis Genge for the Tests.
Schoeman’s stand may well go down in Lions history as the last of its kind.
Lions Test props going the distance: 2025 Aus: None 2021 SA: None 2017 NZ: None 2013 Aus: Mako Vunipola 2009 SA: Andrew Sheridan, Gethin Jenkins 2005 NZ: Julian White (2), Gethin Jenkins (2) 2001 Aus: Tom Smith (2), Phil Vickery (1) 1997 SA: Paul Wallace (all 3), Tom Smith (2) 1993 NZ: Nick Popplewell (all 3), Jason Leonard (2) 1989: Aus: David Sole (all 3), David Young (all 3) 1983: NZ: Graham Price (all 4), Ian Stephens (2), Staff Jones (2) 1980: SA: Graham Price (all 4), Clive Williams (all 4) 1977: NZ: Graham Price (all 4), Fran Cotton (3), Phil Orr (1) 1974: SA: Fran Cotton (all 4), Iain McLauchlan (all 4)
