Battling the Lions: 1930

The British Isles team were the first full British team to tour but initially struggled to make up the numbers.

A committee of the four Home Unions had to ask about 100 players if they were available before they got to the 29 needed. Whatever the various reasons, the world was already about five months into the Great Depression when the team left for New Zealand.

But according to Ron Palenski in his Century of Black, they still had players such as England's first five-eighth Roger Spong. The brilliant centre Carl Aarvold was teamed with Harry Bowcott of Wales and fellow Welshman Jack Bassett, who could play at fullback or halfback. In the forwards, Welsh flanker Ivor Jones ran half the length of the field to set up a win in the first test.

Before the tour got very far, however, there were a few matters to be settled. The manager, James "Bim" Baxter, a 59-year-old insurance company director who had played for England and refereed tests, was a stickler for protocol and the rugby rules, as decided in London.

Each player coming on the tour, for example, had to buy his own dinner suits so he could dress for dinner on the ship to New Zealand.

When they arrived the visitors had dark blue jerseys in which they had previously played against South Africa and Argentina. So New Zealand, for the first time - and reluctantly - played in white jerseys.

The first game at Wanganui, as described by Palenski, had further touches of controversy. Baxter was appalled when the local team went off for a cup of tea at halftime. And at the after-match function, he called the New Zealand system of a 2-3-2 scrum - with a wing forward putting the ball in and the halfback clearing from the back - "cheating" and contrary to the spirit of the game.

Although he then declared the rules did not need altering "one jot", within a year the scrum laws were changed to insist that three players had to play in the front row, ending the New Zealand system and the "obstructionist" wing forward.

For all Baxter's remarks, the team itself were very popular and in the first test "the sensation of the afternoon" became the first British team to win a test with a last-minute try.

They lost the other three tests and three other games out of 21, including a 6-19 loss to Auckland.

Baxter summed up the loss: "It is satisfactory to win well or to be jolly well whacked, and we were jolly well whacked. It is a satisfactory state of affairs as it saves so many 'ifs'."