Sunday
Another Sunday, another check-out, another plane journey (finish Conor Niland’s absorbing read The Racket) and another check-in. For the Meriton Suites, Brisbane, read the Meriton Suites, Melbourne where, once again, the Sky crew are also staying. It’s not an hotel per se, but the mini apartments are spacious and thus more homely. And if it’s good enough for Rog, Miles Harrison et al, it’s good enough for us.
Melbourne is one of those vast cities that the more you know of it, and where to go, the better the experience, and it’s probably the culinary capital of Australia. Okay, not gonna lie, it’s going to be another good week on tour.
Monday
The Lions are based in Xavier College, another magnificent, sprawling school that the squad have used for training. Located in the eastern suburbs of the city, they have converted their main AFL pitch for the Lions. It can be viewed from the main elevated buildings with the Melbourne skyline as a spectacular backdrop.
Is it do or die for Australia in the second test against the Lions?
The media are led to the Eldon Hogan Performing Arts Centre, built thanks to a $4 million donation by the eponymous Old Xaverian and opened on the campus in 2008. it contains 11 science laboratories, a music rehearsal room and a 500-seat auditorium, which is where the briefings will be conducted.
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Some journalists, including Harrison, take in the First Nations and Pasifika XV training session where, astonishingly in this day and age, they are not restricted to just 10 minutes of ‘vision access’ but are invited to stay for the entire session before interviewing players.
Tuesday
Match night, as the British & Irish Lions beat the First Nations & Pasifika XV 24-19. The laptop, complete with spare keyboard, starts assuming a troubling life of its own, requiring constant rebooting, but eventually works, to a degree.
Garry Ringrose is palpably buzzing in the mixed zone after his return for an unscheduled hour off the bench due to Darcy Graham’s cruel misfortune. It’s hard not to be happy for him and he’s also hopeful that he’ll make the team for the second Test, perhaps reunited with Bundee Aki.
Wednesday
Melbourne is also the sporting capital of Australia, and arguably the world. Vivien Lee of Visit Victoria and Melbourne Cricket Club treat the 30-odd Irish and UK media to a boat trip to the MCG for a magnificent lunch in the Long Room, with its panoramic view of the pitch from leather upholstered couches, and a tour of the iconic stadium.
This includes a panoramic view of the nearby Rod Laver Arena, the main stadium used for the Australian Open, the AAMI Stadium, where Ireland played the Wallabies seven years ago, and the indoor Sports and Entertainment Centre and the Olympic Park Oval, while the Melbourne Grand Prix circuit in Albert Park is not far away either.
As its striped members jacket and the Long Room implies, the MCG is akin to Lord’s, but only bigger and brasher. It is the biggest stadium in the southern hemisphere and the 11th biggest in the world.
Aussie Rules is the dominant sport in Melbourne and as well as being the home to cricket matches such as the Boxing Day Test, the MCG is also home to six of the eight AFL teams in the city – namely Melbourne Football Club, Richmond, Essendon, Collingwood, Hawthorn and Collingwood.
Like the Premier League in England, everybody in Melbourne has an AFL team, even the dogs in the street.
The away dressingroom is embroidered with all the overseas players who have hit centuries or taken five-wicket hauls at the ground. Of all the pictures and statues, our guide tells us that the most photographed one is that of the great Don Bradman and the great Sunil Gavaskar, the two most iconic figures in the history of Australian and Indian cricket.
This is in part due to the amount of Indian people who take in a tour of the stadium, but it always amuses that so many pose directly in front of the framed and famous meeting between the pair, thereby obscuring the two legends!
The biggest stand is named in honour of Shane Warne and former Australian cricketer Damien Fleming regales us with tales of Warne’s hat-trick against England in 1994, the first hat-trick in an Ashes Test for 91 years.
On completion, Phil Tufnell, the spin bowler who was a true number 11 batsman, passed Fleming and said to him: “This will be fun.” Tufnell is soon bowled after a wild heave misses the ball, so sealing Australia’s victory, and as they celebrate, Tuffers walks past Fleming again, and said: “I told you it would be fun.”
And at that exact point a journalist, who obviously watches too much rugby and little else, piped up: “What’s a six?”
The Lions bring forward their Thursday team announcement to lunchtime, meaning it clashes with the Wallabies and so, despite a vast amount of journalists travelling at great cost from the other side of the world, it’s not possible to do both.
At which point a journalist, who obviously watches too much rugby and little else, piped up: “What’s a six?”
Thursday
Rumours circulate among the travelling media that the Lions’ starting XV is to be named at lunchtime in their training base at Xavier College.
Alas, Andy Farrell reveals that they had been forced into a late change after Ringrose, for a second time on this tour, selflessly self-diagnoses his concussion symptoms following the Lions’ training session in Xavier College.
Founded by the Jesuits in 1872, it seems entirely apt that the Order’s famous maxim is for the Jesuits to be “a man for others”.
Pretty much the only way in which modern day Lions players get out and about is going for coffees, and when it comes to good coffee shops, there’s probably nowhere better on the planet than Australia. Four of the world’s top eight cafes are in Australia.
Melbourne is full of nooks and crannies and laneways with hidden gems, be they cafes or bars. The invasion from home is heightening again as another Test weekend nears and my jetlagged mate Nick Hogan arrives from Dublin and takes us to a nearby cafe called Patricia Coffee Brewers on Little Burke Street.
It’s a small dark grey building with no obvious signs outside save for the name Patricia on the open glass door. Outdoor seating comes in the form of crates. Nick’s mate is the 3fe founder Colin Harmon, who rates Patricia Coffee Brewers as his favourite in the world.
Yep, the coffee is delicious and it must be good, as Tommy Bowe turns up, too, on the recommendation of a friend in one of the AFL backroom teams.
Tommy also joins us at our restaurant, along with Rog, Harrison, the voice of Lions tours and a lovely man. Tommy has also brought Simon Shaw and Alun Wyn Jones from the AFL game. “We are honoured to be in the presence of greatness,” says Rog, and he’s not kidding. Alun Wyn Jones is a four-time Lion who played in a phenomenal 12 Tests.
Friday
The baffling negativity of many at home is certainly not matched by the Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh fans who are travelling around Australia in support of the Lions as the sense of anticipation steadily builds towards Saturday’s second Test.
Maybe you have to be here. Passing through the hallway of the Meriton Suites, I meet three different Irish supporters who have arrived in Melbourne for the second Test, including one family who have travelled over to tour the country and take in the Lions matches with their Australian-based daughter. There are loads of stories like this.
The concierge recommends two more nearby cafes that serve good coffee, breakfast and might have wifi. Alas, though the look and smell the part, there is no wifi. This is a constantly difficult search on this tour and nearing the end of it, a hotel base, even a spacious one like the Meriton Suites, working in one’s room becomes less appealing. Aussies are friendlier than ever, by and large, on this tour but cafes evidently don’t want customers lingering over laptops, even if they are having breakfast and/or lunch.
Finally, Square One Rialto ticks all the boxes, even with a power point, as the public wifi works here, for the most part. The music is good too; upbeat and funky. Finbarr Concaig, whose dad moved from Belfast to Australia when he was young, describes The Jungle Giants as a typically Aussie band for barbecues.
He’s happy today. ‘His’ Hawthorn beat Carlton the night before in the MCG.
As someone who has often visited Ireland and worked in England, he asks the age-old question, the kernel of the Lions really. “How did you get Irish and English players to play on the same team? How did you pull that off?” he asks, genuinely mystified.
It transpires that this has been a daily haunt for some Lions players in the less conspicuous upper floor of Square One.
