Sean Fitzpatrick recalls it as the worst week of his life while conversely it featured one of the highlights of Warren Gatland’s playing career. It was the seven days between the British & Irish Lions’ 20-7 victory in Wellington in 1993 – until Saturday the last time the tourists have beaten New Zealand – and the subsequent Black-lash at Eden Park. And it comes sharply into focus with all roads leading to Auckland once more.
Fitzpatrick had anticipated a flaying at the hands of the New Zealand press, and so it materialised with a venom that makes clowns look, somewhat fittingly, like child’s play. Gavin Hastings, the Lions captain on that tour, recalled to the Telegraph: “I remember Sean Fitzpatrick telling me after the second Test, ‘Just wait until you read the papers.’ He was right; they tore into the All Blacks and, once they saw that, some of the more inexperienced British journalists and some of the more inexperienced players in the Lions squad thought that was the series wrapped up and we would now have the wind at our backs.”
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