Welsh bring passion on tour

Never ask a Welshman about rugby. Not unless you've got all day.

For the Welsh love their rugby probably more than any other nation and they have arrived in masses for this Lions tour, their spirits buoyed as Six Nations champions.


Outside the Drunken Sailor in Bluff, Jeffrey - no, Dai, he says - Nott and his friend Johnny Walker are heading back to Invercargill for last night's game.

They're from Neath, home of the Welsh All Blacks in deference to the colour of their playing strip. Didn't they once nearly beat the All Blacks?

Yes, and they should have, says Nott, if it hadn't been for that cheating English referee Fred Howard. (It was 1989 and the fans pelted Howard with debris after the 26-15 loss.)

The Welsh don't like the English, the reserved Walker smiles.

Ah, so what about England's old coach and the man running the Lions then, Sir Clive Woodward, what do they think of him?

"He's a disaster. Because he chose too many Englishmen who are over the hill. It's a big thank you to the ones who won him the World Cup," says Walker.

Nott has been on Lions tours in the past, but he is here this year because of the resurgence in Welsh rugby.

As they chat, another couple of Lions tourists head by, prick their ears up at the Woodward chatter and stop. They're Welsh as well.

Nott, a natural story teller, is in full flight.

"He went back on his word, he said he wouldn't bring anyone who wasn't playing international rugby."

Anyone, it seems, who wasn't Lawrence Dallaglio, Will Greenwood or Neil Back - or English.

"Ryan Jones wasn't even picked in the beginning," he says.

"The answer is ask the players who they want to take. They're not going to take any baggage."

Before long, the four men have realised they know just about every rugby player in Wales, and outside as well.

They reckon about the only things wrong with the tour so far are the night games in the middle of winter, which they blame on Rupert Murdoch, and the Barmy Army, who they would have preferred had stuck to where they belong, England cricket.

He'd wanted to come to New Zealand since watching the last successful Lions tour, full of Welsh stars.

In the background the other three have moved on from the English "suitcases", and are getting stuck into the Irish, and the ones who are only here because Brian O'Driscoll's the captain.

"He's crap," is the common criticism of those the Welsh quartet don't believe are up to scratch.

"Bloody useless," is also a favourite phrase.