Colin Meads: Why the All Blacks must win

I can't remember a more vital year for rugby than this one.

The Lions are coming over with a ridiculous number of players and a huge management staff for just 11 games - it's all right for them with all their wealth, but most of the rugby world just can't afford tours like this.  

For the sake of world rugby, the All Blacks have got to win it. 

When we played the' 71 Lions I felt we were a bit unlucky to lose in some ways, but in fairness to them, we were beaten by a better team.  

I was made captain then and in hindsight it probably wasn't such a great move. I was honoured to get the job but when you're captain there's things you can't do.

You've got to be the leader rather than the enforcer - I was better off as a lieutenant. We also had a terribly inexperienced team because a big percentage of our players retired after touring South Africa the year before. 

Lots of our guys had to give it away when they came back, to concentrate on their careers - everyone had a job in those days - so we went into the first test with six players playing their first international.  

The Lions got it right that year. Forwards like Willie John McBride and Ray McLoughlin had toured with the 1966 side and figured out that they had to get parity up front and that's what they did.  

They were well-managed, had a good captain in John Dawes and had a great coach in Carwyn James.  

He used the press brilliantly. The ball had to be put into scrums dead straight in those days and he kept on pushing the view that our halfback, Sid Going, was putting it in crooked.  

Poor old Sid would get penalised three or four times a game and he ended up putting the damn ball under their hooker's feet. James had the press and the referee organised - that's clever management.  

John Pring refereed all four tests in that series, which was unheard-of at the time. 

One thing I could do as captain was talk to the New Zealand Rugby Union about the ref and I was promised he wouldn't get the last test. 

I was disappointed at the time - the Lions seemed to hold sway with the Rugby Union and they got what they wanted.  

In the first test at Carisbrook their forwards played pretty well and, to be honest, they actually beat us up front. 

As a captain I wish I'd had more experience around me - they had Willie John and the other lock, Gordon Brown, who was to be a great lineout forward and then, of course, Barry John at first five eighth, who gave our fullback Fergie McCormick a hard time.  

He had Fergie running all over the bloody paddock and he didn't get much support from our wings on the day. 

The second test was one of our better ones. It was a great one for Ian Kirkpatrick. I'll always remember his try but you knew those Lions were a side who would come back.  

They did in the third test where we badly affected by injury, with a couple of our guys dropping out.  

My old mate Brian Lochore was called back in at lock, and he played well considering he hadn't had much more than club football that year.  

It was pretty even up front although they seemed to get better go-forward ball and we got cleaned out in the backs. Mike Gibson had a brilliant game at second five-eighth that day.  

Then it was up to Eden Park with a hell of a lot riding on it. JPR Williams, their great fullback, banged a dropkick over from 50m out in the second half and we couldn't find a way to beat them.  

We felt we were a bit unlucky not to win that test and draw the series but that's the sign of a good side - always in it, and we never got on top of them.

Some of our guys went on to become great players. 

I'm thinking of Peter Whiting who went on be a great lock, Kirkpatrick and Tane Norton went on to be All Black captains but like most of the younger guys in'71, a lot of their good rugby was to come.  

My first series against the Lions was in '59 when I was a youngster and brought in for the second test.  

They had some brilliant backs and, in Rhys Williams, one of the toughest locks I've ever played against. I only played lock in the last test and found he was a real competitor - no matter what I did, I couldn't put him off his game. 

In'59 we young guys - Wilson Whineray, Kel Tremain, and Red Conway - learned a hell of a lot. Most important of all was that New Zealand teams in those days always had to get 60 per cent of the possession, especially during that tour because they had such brilliant backs.  

Back then, the Lions never had coaches as such and the captain ran the cutter so it's hard to know what might have been if they had been well prepared.  

In'66 it was a different story. You don't want to be too critical of them but their captain, Michael Campbell-Lamerton, couldn't get the thing together and they really struggled.  

British rugby came alive after that tour and a lot of those players came back in'71 really well prepared from what they'd learned.  

That'66 tour gave me the chance to bump into McBride again after he and I first tangled in 1963 during our tour of Britain and Ireland.  

On that tour he was a new fellow in the Irish side. He thought I was giving him a hard time and we had a bit of a set-to but then we became good friends.  

In a silly sort of way we had this ongoing thing every time we played against each other. 

There was always a clip under the ear going each way, and always one coming back.  

It was no malice, none of that sort of stuff, it was just man-to-man business, not like it is nowadays, where there's a bit of a melee and the whole team rushes in.  

I'm pretty confident about beating them this year. We're going to struggle in one or two areas, especially at lock, a lot is going to hinge on the trial this year.  

* Colin Meads played against the Lions a record 14 times, including 11 test matches and three provincial games. He made his debut in 1957, aged 20, and played 55 tests and 78 games for the All Blacks until 1971.