The Rugby Historian

Author: Du Toit McLachlan

The British and Irish Lions squad: A historical club-level analysis

Last week, we wrote about the composition of past British and Irish Lions touring squads and test teams based on players’ nationality, highlighting how a team’s performance in the Five or Six Nations often did not determine its level of representation in the squad. This week, we will look at the Lions through the lens of the clubs and provinces that have sent players on tour. We will explore the number of clubs represented, the clubs with the most Lions players, and those rare few clubs not based in the United Kingdom (UK) who contributed to the touring side.

The analysis will look at the 20 tours which have taken place since 1950, as the Rugby Historian focuses on Test rugby played after World War II. In that time, 128 clubs have been represented in the British and Irish Lions touring squads. The 1983 tour saw 30 clubs represented, the most in a single touring squad. The high number is partly due to manager Willie John McBride’s side being beset with injuries in New Zealand, and calling up six additional players during the tour. The initial selection also drew from a wide range of clubs, with Pontypool having the highest number of players in the squad at four.

The number of clubs represented per tour has declined since then, reaching an all-time low of 14 in 2009. Players were heavily concentrated amongst a few clubs, as of the 41 players who went on tour or joined later as replacements, eight came from the Ospreys, six from Munster, and five each from Wasps, Leinster, and Cardiff. Only five clubs sent a single player, one more than the record low of four in 2017, in sharp contrast to that 1983 squad, where 26 clubs only sent one representative on tour. The dawn of the professional era in 1995 and the subsequent merging and disbanding of clubs have led to fewer clubs contributing to Lions touring squads.

This trend has coincided with a higher number of players going on tour too: since 1997, more than 40 players have been involved per tour every time the Lions have travelled. Before then, the Lions had sent more than 35 players on tour only twice, in 1980 and 1983. The introduction of injury substitutions in 1968 and tactical substitutions in 1996 has naturally led to an increase in players touring, as has the expansion of a matchday squad from 22 to 23 players in 2012. Interestingly, the number of clubs being represented is decreasing while the number of players has increased, pointing to a greater concentration of talent and possibly resources amongst a smaller number of clubs.

Cardiff has been the club most represented on tour, having provided 40 Lions to date and having had at least one representative in a touring squad on every tour since 1950, except in 1993. The top 10 clubs are mostly English and Welsh, with Leinster in 8th being the only Irish representative, while the highest-ranked Scottish team is Glasgow in 18th. However, since the game became professional in 1995, Leinster has provided the third most Lions, while Munster ranks sixth and Glasgow tenth. Leicester ranks first in this period, providing nearly 10% of the Lions’ squad since the 1997 tour to South Africa.

Although the all-time top ten is dominated by Wales and English clubs, and recent years have seen a rise in representation for Irish and Scottish sides, a small number of clubs outside the British Isles have provided Lions squad members. On seven tours, players plying their trade outside of the United Kingdom have toured with the Lions. The first was Maurice Colclough, who went on the 1980 and 1983 tours whilst playing for Angoulême in France, playing in all four tests on both tours. The next tour to feature a player from a club outside the UK was in 2001, and there has been such a representative on each tour since. The 2013 tour saw three ‘foreign’ clubs represented, with two players from French sides and one, Shane Williams, from the Japanese side Mitsubishi Sagamihara DynaBoars, the only club outside the UK or France to have a player tour with the Lions. The trend is likely to continue, with both Blair Kinghorn and Jack Willis, who play for Toulouse in the French Top 14, strong contenders for selection in Andy Farrell’s squad.