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Alastair Campbell recalls his controversial Lions speech that left players 'seething'

McCaw was 'targeted in all phases' by the 2005 Lions.

Former Downing Street director of communications Alastair Campbell has shed some light on his speech during the 2005 British and Irish Lions tour which angered some players.

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Campbell worked as Sir Clive Woodwards’ head of communications for the Lions’ 3-0 series loss to the All Blacks, and was even used to provide a team talk after the chastening 21-3 loss in the first Test. This speech, however, was not popular with the entire squad.

“Some of the players were hanging around in the bar downstairs [after the first Test] and having a bit of a laugh with some of the fans and I just made this observation to Clive that I was really surprised by that,” Campbell said to 2005 tourist Will Greenwood on his podcast this week.

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“I didn’t feel that they were really hurting like I thought they might be that they’d lost. It just felt very strange to me. He went ‘I want you to talk to them, I want you to tell them that.’

“I said ‘Clive, are you sure that’s a good idea?’ But you know what he’s like, once he gets fixed on something.

“I was quite worried about it, but I was working for Clive and he wanted me to do it. He basically said ‘some of the players have got a bit complacent and they’re not listening to me, they’re not listening to what I’m saying. I’ve got to think of something to shake them up.’

“It was really interesting, the reaction. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Brian O’Driscoll and he was just doing this very gentle shake of the head. He was basically saying dial it down a bit.

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“I had prepared it quite carefully, I’d thought it through. But I could sense in the room that there were some who were genuinely engaging. But others, I remember Martin Corry was absolutely seething.

“Matt Dawson said I lost some of them from the word go because I started off by saying ‘compared to you guys I know nothing about rugby’. That may be true, but it was my way of saying ‘I’m coming at this from a totally different perspective, I hope I can give you an insight.”

Future Lions captain Paul O’Connell was another player who was irked by this speech, and detailed his reaction in his book The Battle.

“On the training pitch the following morning, I was still thinking about Alastair’s few words and getting more and more p****d off. I decided what I was going to do when the session was over: find Alastair and knock him out.”

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J
JW 2 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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