However, their penultimate outing before the first test was against Canterbury at Lancaster Park.
The Lions won 14-9 but by all accounts it was one of the most filthy, violent games of rugby ever played; so much so, historians now refer to it as the Battle of Canterbury, like it was part of some civil war or invasion by enemy hordes.
The result was both Lions props, Sandy Carmichael and Ray McLoughlin, were injured for the first test; Carmichael with a broken cheekbone and McLoughlin with a fractured thumb. But rather than have him mope around the hotel during a wet Dunedin week, the Lions decided to use McLoughlin as a spy and sent him out with a notebook and pen, a tape recorder and a pair of dark sunglasses.
The All Blacks had practised at a very wet Littlebourne at Otago Boy's High School earlier in the week and, despite the Irishman's 'disguise', were able to decipher the identity of this rogue element by the plaster cast around his hand!
That didn't deter McLoughlin, however, from turning up at the All Black's final training run on the Friday before the test, again on a sodden ground.
In fact, such was the volume of water the home side were practising on, All Blacks number 8 Alan Sutherland needed to find a way of drying his solitary pair of boots before he needed them for the match the next day.
His brainwave was to leave them on the heater in his hotel room, where they duly melted into a black mass of unwearable leather and studs.
Upon discovering this footwear faux pas, the Marlborough loose forward spent the best part of next morning canvassing the shops of Dunedin to find a replacement pair.
It's not known where he acquired his boots for the afternoon's match, but remarkably, he found a shiny new pair.
The rugby faithful had already started lining up at six o'clock that morning for the 2.30pm kick-off; 45,000 made it into the ground, with a further 10,000 turned away.
Most of those unlucky fans promptly made their way to the 'Scotsman's Grandstand', on the railway tracks overlooking the now defunct ground.
The ground announcer tried to deter the non-paying spectators by warning of an oncoming train, but the savvy footy fans called his bluff and remained in position to watch the game!
They saw one try that afternoon; the All Blacks were defending their line when the ball spilled out of a tackle. It was passed back to Sutherland in the melee, and as the big number 8 tried to clear the ball to touch, it slid off the side of those shiny new boots, whereupon Scottish prop Ian 'Mighty Mouse' McLauchlan pounced and scored!
The Lions won 9-3 that day, paving the way for their one and only series win in New Zealand... to date.
