Dice forfeits.. and chats about VAT! Inside the Lions’ camp Down Under

After their first-Test victory over the Wallabies on Saturday night, a group of Lions players celebrated at the Marquee Bar on Brunswick Street. The likes of Finn Russell, Will Stuart and Andrew Porter donned their Australian bush hats after their recovery ice baths and hit the town in Brisbane.

Many of their partners joined, too. Family has been a big part of this trip; from presenting the Test jerseys at the Botanic Gardens, to children running around on the pitch during the final training session at the Suncorp Stadium.

There is a theory in sports psychology that inviting young family into training helps break the tension in high-pressure environments. It brings a sense of normality and warmth, as well as offering a feeling of enhanced motivation. Whatever Andy Farrell’s reasoning was, it worked.

The Lions coach ordered his players to gather their chairs in a ‘circle of trust’ as he named the team for the series opener. ‘Make sure every single chair can see the screen,’ he said, marking the name of every first capper with an asterisk.

‘The asterisk, for me, all it says is that this has been a lifetime worth of work to get to this point, where we are in a position to nail it. Understand what’s coming, lads, visualise it all, get across your work and f****** own it.’

There was a collective buy-in from the wider playing group, as well as the chosen 23. Every member of the touring squad has bought into the shared goal of winning every match on Australian soil, wrapping in both midweek games and the headline Tests.

In previous tours, splits emerged when new players joined the camp. During the 2017 tour of New Zealand, there was resentment towards the late ‘Geography Six’ call-ups who were selected on proximity over merit. This time, every new arrival has been treated the same way.

Bundee Aki is in charge of the traditional ‘fines committee’. Be it Owen Farrell or Thomas Clarkson, Aki charged every late call-up for the crime of ‘arriving late’. Their punishment is to roll a giant dice, with each number representing a different forfeit, typically ranging from taking fan questions on Instagram live to phoning their club coach and asking to be appointed captain.

‘The emphasis on this tour has been about the togetherness of the group and it feels like it’s a very tight-knit group,’ said hooker Jamie George, who flew out from Argentina last week. ‘I felt very welcome from the start and there’s been a big emphasis on that. Coming in, I’ve seen that; the tightness of the group, how close people are to each other. I’m not saying that didn’t happen before, but there has been a big emphasis on that.’

George has been rooming with Owen Farrell in Melbourne this week. Farrell paid his way out of his forfeit, with the funds going into a charity pot managed by the investment committee of Tadhg Beirne and Tom Curry.

‘On the financial committee on the bus, we are constantly trying to come up with new things to inform the boys about,’ revealed Beirne. ‘So that’s a hot topic for us. The most recent one we did was how lads could go and buy computers and get 10 per cent VAT back on the way back home. The exchange rate’s pretty good. And we’ve talked about the tour fee [each player earns about £100,000 for going on the full tour]… all that kind of stuff.’

Beirne and Curry, too, have been sharing a room, while also sharing a sense of grievance. The two flankers came under fire on social media for their performances in the provincial games and the coaching team used that to light a fire beneath them before the Test.

‘Look, Andy had a quiet word with the back row, the captains, and he said a few things to us,’ revealed Beirne. ‘He put a little bit of pressure on us without putting pressure on us, you know, as Andy does. But it gives you motivation and it gives you a little bit of realisation as to where his head’s at and the opportunity that’s being presented to us.

‘So those words certainly sat with me for the 24 hours leading up to the game. I knew how important the game was and not just because of what he said, but it’s also a massively important game because each week is the biggest game of your career on these tours. I’m 33 now, I’m not going to be on another Lions tour, let’s be realistic, so these are special moments.’

Finn Russell, the team’s playmaker, was rooming with his Scottish team-mate Sione Tuipulotu before the first Test. They have a tongue-in-cheek superstition of rolling two dice before they go to sleep. If they score more than six, they know the next day is going to be a good day. On the eve of the opening match, they rolled an eight.

The omens were good. White chocolate and cranberry porridge has become the popular matchday breakfast in the team hotels and the players fuelled up, before killing some time on matchday at the local Anthology cafe. It was recently named the eighth-best coffee shop in the world, so the likes of Ellis Genge gathered at a table for a game of cards to ease the matchday nerves.

The players were clapped out of their riverside hotel by relatives before they boarded the coach to the Suncorp Stadium. Genge, high on caffeine, led the team-talk in the dressing room. ‘Have a think about what you represent,’ he said to his team-mates, firing them up for their dominant first-half performance.

Maro Itoje was more vocal at half-time. ‘How are we gonna make each other feel?’ he asked, as the room became intoxicating with the whiff of deep heat and sniffing salts. ‘These next 10 minutes are going to be full of life, full of bounce, full of energy. Next-job mentality. The time is now fellas. No second chances. Let’s make sure we make this happen.’

His team did not need a second chance. They sang their victory song, a rugby man’s twist on Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over The World, before heading to the bar.

This week’s plan? To do it all over again.