The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Lions are a test side and most often select players who have already played for their national team, although they can pick uncapped players who are eligible for any of the four unions. The team tours every four years, with these rotating between Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in order. The most recent test series, the 2021 series against South Africa, was won 2–1 by South Africa.
The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks, represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. Famed for their international success, the All Blacks have often been regarded as one of the most successful sports teams in history.
Newport Rugby Football Club is a Welsh rugby union club based in the city of Newport, Wales. They presently play in the Welsh Premier Division. Until 2021 Newport RFC were based at Rodney Parade situated on the east bank of the River Usk.
Sir Clive Ronald Woodward is an English former rugby union player and coach. He was coach of the England team from 1997 to 2004, managing them to victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. He also coached the 2005 British & Irish Lions tour to New Zealand, losing the test series 3–0. He is currently a pundit for ITV Sport, working on their coverage of the Six Nations and Rugby World Cup.
William Wavell Wakefield, 1st Baron Wakefield of Kendal, known as Sir Wavell Wakefield between 1944 and 1963, was an English rugby union player for Harlequins, Leicester Tigers and England, President of the Rugby Football Union and Conservative politician.
Garry Edward Schofield OBE is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s and 1990s, and is a member of the British Rugby League Hall of Fame.
Charles "Chook" Fraser (1893–1981) was an Australian rugby league footballer and later coach. He was a versatile three-quarter for the Australian national team. He played in 11 Tests between 1911 and 1920 as captain on 3 occasions. He is considered one of the nation's finest footballers of the 20th century
Jonathan "Jonty" Parkin (1894–1972) was an English professional rugby league footballer who played the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. One of the nine inaugural inductees of the Rugby Football League Hall of Fame, he toured Australia three times, twice as captain of Great Britain, earning 17 Test caps. Parkin played at stand-off or scrum-half, and also captained England for whom he made 12 appearances, as well as 17 for Yorkshire. Parkin gave the Wakefield Trinity club seventeen years' service, including victory in the 1924–25 Yorkshire Cup.
Ian Scott Smith was a rugby union wing who played 32 Tests for Scotland and two Tests for the British Isles. Born in Melbourne, Australia, and brought up in New Zealand, Smith moved to England and was educated at Winchester College, before studying at Oxford University and later Edinburgh University. At Oxford he took up rugby and was eventually selected for Scotland, for whom he was eligible because of his Scottish parents. He toured with the British Isles to South Africa in 1924, and played all four matches in Scotland's first ever Five Nations Grand Slam in 1925. He represented Scotland until 1933 when he captained them in their Triple Crown winning season. His 24 international tries, all scored in the Five Nations or Home Nations, was an international record until 1987 and a record for the Five/Six Nations until 2011. This record stood for 88 years until 2021, when it was broken by Stuart Hogg.
Benjamin Louwrens Osler was a rugby union footballer who played internationally for South Africa. Osler played mainly at fly-half for both South Africa, and his provincial team of Western Province.
The 1924 British Isles tour to South Africa was the tenth tour by a British Isles team and the fifth to South Africa. The tour is retrospectively classed as one of the British Lions tours, as the Lions naming convention was not adopted until 1950. As well as South Africa, the tour included a game in Salisbury in Rhodesia, in what would become present day Harare in Zimbabwe.
Neil McPherson OBE, was a Welsh rugby union player who represented Scotland and the British Lions. McPherson played club rugby for Newport and captained the team in the 1921/22 season.
Douglas Marsden-Jones CBE born Marsden Douglas Jones was a Welsh international rugby union forward who played club rugby for Cardiff and London Welsh. Marsden-Jones was also a member of Ronald Cove-Smith's British Isles team that toured South Africa in 1924.
The Glasgow Academical Football Club is the third oldest rugby football club in Scotland. The club was also a founder member of the Scottish Football Union in 1873.
King's College Hospital RFC is an open rugby union club founded in the 19th century as a football club whose representatives were made up of medics from King's College Hospital. In its original form it was one of the twenty-one founding members of the Rugby Football Union, and produced a number of international players in the sport's early international fixtures. The merging of King's College Hospital medical department in 1999 with the already merged Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital led to the creation of Guy's, Kings and St. Thomas' Rugby Football Club, an amalgam of three formerly distinct hospital rugby clubs each with a long history. King's College Hospital Rugby Football Club opted to remain a separate entity in so doing became an open rugby club that no longer represented the Hospital medics.
William Hall was an English rugby union and professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1910s and 1920s. He played club level rugby union (RU) for Gloucester RFC, and representative level rugby league (RL) for Great Britain and England, and at club level for Oldham, as a centre or stand-off.
The 1910 British Lions tour to Argentina was a rugby tour of Argentina made by a side made up of 16 English players and 3 Scots. The organisers of the tour named the team the "English Rugby Union team", but the host country advertised the touring team as the British Combined. The 1910 team has been termed as one of the three "lost lions" tours, and is detailed on the British and Irish Lions official website. For Argentina, this tour marked the start of international rugby union and the test against the Combined British on 12 June 1910 was the first test in the Argentine national team's history.
Dr John Rodney Cove-Smith was the son of Ronald Cove-Smith, a distinguished English physician and captain of the English rugby team. He was educated first at Rugby, where he was head boy, then, following his father's footsteps, he read medicine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, later specialising in nephrology. A keen sportsman, he played hockey for England Schoolboys and Cambridge. In 1978 he was appointed consultant in Middlesbrough, where he remained until his death from metastatic prostate cancer in 2004. He also championed the cause of postgraduate and, more recently, of undergraduate medical training on Teesside. He was clinical tutor from 1987 to 1990, was a prime mover in the expansion of the Durham and Newcastle Medical School to the Stockton Queen's Campus and, as chief of the academic division in the James Cook University Hospital, he led the development of the academic centre there. In recognition of this he was awarded an honorary chair by Durham University, and the new medical library bears his name.
Anthony Thomas Voyce was an English rugby union player who played in the flanker position. Voyce played club rugby with Gloucester RFC, was capped 29 times for England, and was a member of the British Isles team that toured in 1924.
