Great moments in Lions tour history: The brief All Blacks career of Colin Farrell

In 1977 a 21-year-old Auckland fullback was plucked from obscurity to make his All Blacks debut against the Lions. Jamie Wall remembers the ill-fated test career of Colin Farrell.

The selection of Rieko Ioane for the first test against the British & Irish Lions has come as a bit of a shock to most All Blacks fans. Even though the youngster is highly rated, he’s managed to keep not one but two devastating strike weapons out of the test squad.

Waisake Naholo and Julian Savea will both be watching the game like almost everyone else, and this turn of events actually gives us a chance to debate an All Blacks selection for what seems like the first time in ages. Which is fitting, given that it’s happening in an old-school style tour.

This will be Ioane’s first test of any real significance in the black jersey, and it conjures up memories of another time a very young guy was picked to start against the Lions. Rieko Ioane will be hoping his game on Saturday night goes a bit better than it did for Colin Farrell back in 1977.

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The 21-year-old Auckland fullback was selected out of nowhere for the first test against the very strong Lions that year. How he exactly got there is pretty comical. It seems that between them selectors Jack Gleeson, Eric Watson and John Stewart couldn’t think of a decent player to pick in the whole country, so asked winger Bryan Williams to shift back a spot.

BeeGee didn’t want a bar of wearing the 15 jersey, so hastily suggested his Ponsonby and Auckland teammate Farrell – perhaps because he wanted to end the phone call as quick as possible and Farrell was the first guy he could think of. The selectors felt it was a strong enough case, and despite not playing in any of the All Black trials, the Hulk Hogan-haired fullback strode out onto Athletic Park for the first test.

It didn’t go well.

Admittedly this cruelly-titled cut includes only the worst moments of Farrell’s short All Blacks career. But, having watched the whole two tests he played, there is isn’t much else to report about his international career.

That’s right, two tests. The selectors, clearly not having realised that they’d made a big mistake, picked Farrell again to start at Lancaster Park a fortnight later. This time was slightly better, although he did put in a candidate for worst touch-finder ever in test rugby.

History doesn’t look kindly on Farrell: his allblacks.com profile labels him as a case study in the “often hit and miss methods” used to select All Black teams. It’s hard to blame Farrell personally for the two poor performances – it’s not his fault he got selected when he clearly wasn’t ready. Had Williams had a bit of time to consider the magnitude of that phone call, and Farrell had ended up getting picked when he was a bit more experienced, his career may have turned out a lot differently.

Rieko Ioane’s selection probably means that, like Farrell, he’s going to be peppered with high balls and put under a lot of pressure. But at least he’s had two cracks at the Lions already on this tour and even has a try under his belt.

Plus, he is there after coming up through the age grades to Super Rugby – not some random cold call by a selection panel that had never seen him play.