Is the nation ready for the Lions’ roar?

Staunch Lions supporter and owner of The Pheasant Plucker Bar Alex Root-Reed cannot wait for the touring Lions to arrive in Rotorua. Picture / Daily Post

Jonathan Milne visits Rotorua, the venue for the visitors' first match of their eagerly anticipated New Zealand tour, to see how preparations are going.

The rain falls straight and heavy, washing some of the sulphur smell from the night air. It runs off the edges of the restaurant awnings on Tutanekai St, but the pink and white fabric pansies hanging below are resilient.

Up the road in Tauranga, houses are being washed off sodden cliffs, and the dark red dirt of the Baypark Stadium speedway is trickling on to the flooded green playing surface.

But here in provincial Rotorua, there seems a certain unbending sturdiness of spirit in the rain; like the romantic childhood memories of big stripe-jerseyed men from Te Kuiti and Oamaru stubbornly slugging it out on the rugby paddocks in the face of the downpour. Mud, blood and guts.

This was the rugby, the climate, the country in which legends rose up and myths were built.

Rotorua's Barry Spry, then 24, sat on the reserve bench and watched as the Bay of Plenty played the touring Lions in 1971. But it would be another six years before the tall lumbering lock ran on to International Stadium to face the Lions' roar.

Renowned rugby writer TP McLean recorded Spry's chase of the 'Llanelli waltz' quick-stepping Lions winger, Phil Bennett: "Ripe old Barry, 30 years of age and 97kg in weight. Yet it was a close-run thing before Phil got away; even Jesse Owens couldn't have performed the Llanelli waltz glide faster."

Sitting in the stand at International Stadium, now aged 58, Spry remembers the noise of the crowd: "I chased him from one side of the paddock to the other. I never laid a hand on him - but he didn't make a single metre forward."

Fearful of the reserves bench, he hadn't told coach Eric Anderson that he had just bought a one-man bread delivery business, that he had debts to pay, that the match was his last.

"I didn't say anything to anybody till we went in the changing room afterwards. I took my jersey off and gave it to the coach and said 'thanks mate, that's it'. And that was it. I didn't even come back to the ground for another few years. It devastated me to know I could have stillbeen playing."

It is the afternoon after the downpour and two groundsmen slowly move along the far side of the field, repainting the white lines. The natural amphitheatre of International Stadium is free of puddles, lush and unspoiled - it is rarely used now.

Wealthy Tauranga has more or less bought the Bay Steamers, and their games are mostly played at Baypark Stadium. Brilliant young Rotorua players like Liam Messam must go to the Chiefs or other Super 12 franchises to be noticed in the professional game.

At their home near International Stadium, Messam's parents feel as if the soul has gone out of Rotorua rugby. As a young man recently arrived from Britain, the first game of rugby Lewis Messam watched in New Zealand was when the Bay came within a farm horse's whisker of beating the Lions in 1959.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Bay has lost support. It's because of this exclusivity in Tauranga, rather than sharing the games around."

But now Mr Messam feels a certain spirit coming back, "an intensity slowly building".

Because in two weeks, rugby returns to Rotorua. The council is hiring 180 portaloos for the stadium, and has warned its sewage plant to prepare for a surge. Bookings for the tourist town's 13,500 hotel beds are fast filling. Lions supporters have booked 1800 campervans and 1500 rental cars nationwide.

"Will Prince William visit Rotorua for big game?" asks the front-page headline of The Daily Post. LakesCare Pharmacy is stocking up on extra condoms and hangover remedies for the projected 3000 Lions supporters, the Barmy Army.

Beneath the Guinness Clock atop Hennessy's (est 1905) Irish bar is a big billboard with a signwriter's disregard for apostrophes: "Rotoruas only official Lions Bar."

Owner Reg Hennessy (when pressed, he says a family member ran a pub in Ireland in 1905) says he has ordered 200 kegs of beer for Queen's Birthday weekend - half of them Guinness, the sponsor's drink. That's about 10,000 pints of beer.

He will be opening each day at 7am, and is waiting for the police to rubber-stamp his licence so he can stay open till 5am for the British telecast of the Martin Johnston testimonial match, starring Jonah Lomu.

Next to the blackened lead-lighted pub, which can cram in 200 people, he is erecting a marquee to hold another 800. And he expects to have barbecues running round the clock serving steaks and the bar's specialty, bangers and mash. "I don't think Rotorua retailers know what they're in for," Hennessy says.

"I was in Melbourne, when the Lions were there, and it was chocka - a sea of red right down the road. They'll be well behaved. I'm just a bit worried about some of them lighting up cigarettes in the marquee. Steve Chadwick [Labour MP and smoking law reformer] and her vultures will be down here spying for sure."

For now, the only smokers outside Hennessy's are two Finns, Elisa Yllo and Katariina Helander, and a Canadian, Tash Grant - all of them more interested in ice hockey.

By three o'clock on Thursday morning, jovial bouncer Ralph Kelemete is gently trying to clear a dozen drunk and happy young Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians from Lava backpackers' bar. In two weeks time, he expects nothing but British and Irish: "I'm not too sure Rotorua is ready for the hooligans who are going to hit the town. And I'm worried about the locals getting involved," he says. "I'm praying everything runs smoothly."

Already, the outriders of the Barmy Army are here.

Dorset marketing executive Phil Preen, 26, and Brixton teacher Graham White, 28, have been playing golf and luging during the day. At night, they drink.

Arriving at Hennessy's two minutes after 1am closing time,they had been refused beer:"It's quite disgraceful, to be honest," exclaims an outraged Preen.

After Kelemete closes down Lava, they move on through the darkened town. One of their friends pirouettes indelicately into a town fountain at 6am - someone should warn these guys about the scalding hot pools.

But Preen insists the Barmy Army will be self-controlled: "With rugby the violence is on the pitch, the camaraderie is off the pitch.

"Backpackers traditionally go down to Queenstown to do the adventure tourism stuff, which is significantly more expensive. But all the Barmy Army guys will be here instead, throwing themselves off bridges and waterfalls. There will be a significant cash injection, because a lot of the Barmy Army guys will be significantly better off. They'll be bringing out a couple of thousand pounds of spending money each."

It's a far cry from the tours of the 60s and 70s, when the Lions team turned up with not much more than a manager, coach and medic.

Barry Spry has been asked to help look after the Lions while they are in Rotorua, but is resigned to the fact that it will be very different to his playing days.

"We used to socialise with them afterwards, and it was good. Not now. I don't think they even drink beer now. They're on strict diets. The whole game's changed.

"They come out here with more officials than players, and they base themselves in the big cities and just fly the players into the provinces the day before the game."

He shares with his generation memories like when his father would wake up and his brother at 2am for a Northern Hemisphere game. "He'd make us a hot cup of cocoa. Once he even cooked us whitebait fritters. And we'd sit there in front of the wireless, fire roaring," Spry says.

"Things have all changed - the whole social scene in New Zealand. We used to work Monday to Friday, Friday was late night shopping, Saturday was sports day and Sunday was family day. When we left school, our social scene revolved around rugby in the winter. Six o'clock closing, you'd have a few drinks at the club, then a sing song, then a dance. Next thing you've got a few guys getting married, nippers coming along."

These are the memories of which legends like Spry - still wearing the lace-up shorts and cauliflower ears - are made. And these are the myths, desperately idealised though they may be, that helped form this country's identity.

For Spry and others, the Lions' arrival is a chance to recapture that identity, that security.

"I've got a six-year old grandson now. He's rugby mad. Recently his cat had three kittens: they're called Joe Rokocoko, Daniel Carter and Carlos Spencer. If I can get a programme autographed for him, rub shoulders with the players and maybe have a beer with them afterwards, I'd be more than happy.

"I would love to see fathers with their sons in the stands - that's what it's all about."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY