
The Lions head Down Under! Maro Itoje leads his squad to Australia... flying in the world's most luxurious suites
The Lions journey to Australia has finally begun after the players took off from Dublin on Saturday morning.
Just hours after Friday night's defeat by Argentina, the squad bedded down in their luxury Qsuites on a Qatar Airways flight to Perth.
The squad will stop off in Doha, before continuing their journey to the Southern Hemisphere for their opening tour match against Western Force.
After a game of cards at the airport, Maro Itoje led his team on board, suited and booted, promising improvements as he plots to lead the side to victory Down Under.
He was followed on board by back-row Henry Pollock who, as the youngest player in the squad, is responsible for carrying BIL the lion teddy throughout the tour.
Andy Farrell is likely to rotate his side for the opening match at the Optus Stadium, where 40,000 tickets have already been sold for the curtain raiser.
Title-winning players from Leinster and Bath are likely to feature, with the likes of No 10 Finn Russell all due game time.
'We land Sunday night in Perth, I imagine on Monday morning we'll have something getting us up and going again,' said Russell.
'So I think getting a schedule or a routine as soon as you get there is pretty important.
'But the guys who will be looking after that and trying to give us a plan for when we sleep on the flight, they've had it planned out for longer than we think.'
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Troubled footy star Jamarra Ugle-Hagan opens up on mental health struggles in harrowing detail: 'I hit rock bottom and found basement'
Western Bulldogs forward Jamarra Ugle-Hagan has revealed that he 'frequently' contemplated taking his own life, as he opened up about his mental health struggles in a harrowing discussion. Ugle-Hagan fronted the Dogs' playing group on Monday, in a move that could open the door for the troubled forward to return to action this year. The 23-year-old also took part in a light training session but could still be weeks away from a possible playing comeback at VFL level. Ugle-Hagan hasn't played a game this season while dealing with personal issues, and has been unable to regularly train with the Bulldogs since late last year. The 2020 No.1 draft pick recently visited a health retreat in northern NSW in an effort to get his life and career back on track. 'All the noises actually sent me to a rehab facility for my mental health,' Ugle-Hagan told Mitch Robinson and Rhys Mathieson on the Rip Through It podcast. Ugle-Hagan hasn't been a regular at Bulldogs training since late last year as he seeks to overcome off-field issues 'It got to a point where I had to give my car to a mate so I couldn't drive, I just didn't trust myself driving. 'There were times when I would think about – to be honest with you – just not even worth even living. 'I went through a struggle where I didn't want to leave the house. I hit rock bottom, and found basement. 'Definitely (there were suicidal thoughts). Suicidal thoughts would come pretty frequently. 'Especially when I felt like I was on my own the whole time. The way I was isolated and put out in public.' The young footy star says the health retreat has changed his life. 'It takes balls to talk in a group but once you do it, it is f**king amazing, it feels good and they have answers for you,' he said. 'You think you are alone and no one understands. The talented forward (pictured with ex-girlfriend Olivia Kelly) is now looking at a possible comeback through the VFL after taking a huge step with his club 'But when you speak up and hear people's stories it makes you feel so much better hearing people's stories and knowing they're going through the same thing you are.' Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge last week raised the prospect of Ugle-Hagan resuming his 67-game AFL career with the club. Ugle-Hagan says he can't wait to get back on the field. 'I want to play footy. I can't wait to play footy,' he said. 'I want to kick a f**king goal in front of those crowds. 'I have been watching every single Bulldogs game. I have been supporting them, been watching them. 'I will go to games at the end of the year. I genuinely want to play one more (game), I want to play some games. 'It's going to be grouse.' Ugle-Hagan led the Bulldogs with a career-best 43 goals in 22 appearances last year, but has not featured at any level since the elimination final defeat to Hawthorn. His return to the club comes with the Bulldogs (7-6) sitting ninth on the ladder, one win outside the top eight, ahead of a clash with Richmond on Sunday.


Times
4 hours ago
- Times
If Andy Farrell wants Lions to roar it is time to talk like Jim Telfer
How is it, I thought, watching the 2025 British & Irish Lions play Argentina at the Aviva Stadium on Friday evening, that Ireland don't get this kind of support in Dublin? This was a Lions XV without the Leinster 12, and with nine England players in the starting team. Yet the warmth of the capacity crowd was commensurate with the temperature of a beautiful summer's evening. Why are there never as many green shirts in the stadium when Ireland play? Never as many white shirts at Twickenham as there were red ones at the Aviva? And how the fans willed the team in red to win. What is it that makes the Lions so popular? Why will 40,000 travel to Australia over the course of the next six weeks making each game look like a home match for the touring team? Not forgetting the disappointment that comes with defeat. The game against Argentina was far better than warm-up matches usually are. For this, Argentina deserve most of the credit. They thrived on the sense of occasion and the opportunity to test themselves against the Lions. Without half of their first-choice team, they excelled. The Lions looked like a group of players still getting to know each other. Unable to be at the stadium, I watched it on Sky and didn't warm to the punditry. Too sweet to be wholesome. Though we are fans and want the team to do well, we need tough analysis to better explain what the problems are and where the weaknesses lie. It says something about independent punditry when the most insightful post-match commentary comes from the losing coach. 'We lost enough ball there for a full tour, never mind a Test match against a good side like Argentina . . . throwing passes that were never on,' Andy Farrell said. 'But it wasn't just that, it was the aerial battle, the scraps on the floor. They were hungrier than us and that's just not acceptable.' Towards the end of the TV coverage there was still time for another teaspoon of sugar from the Sky team. Alex Payne, the presenter, asked his panellists about the last time the Lions lost an opening warm-up game. Someone guessed 1997. It was the 1971 tour to New Zealand when the Lions began with two games in Australia, losing the first 15-11 to Queensland in Brisbane. 'That tour,' said Payne, 'was a relative success.' Relative? I presume the presenter was trying a little irony, though there was nothing in his delivery to suggest as much. Fifty-four years have passed since that Carwyn James-coached squad became the first and still only Lions squad to have beaten the All Blacks in a Test series. At least for me, '71 was the moment the love affair began. For years afterwards we felt that at long last the Kiwis might have some respect for how we played rugby in the northern hemisphere. We amused ourselves with the story that in bingo halls all over New Zealand, the man calling out the numbers would say, 'All the ones, legs 11'; 'Top of the house, 90'; 'Number 10, Barry John'. Every so often I dip into a book read long ago, Terry McLean's account of the '71 tour, Lions Rampant. Each revisit recovers an unremembered gem. At the very first press conference given by the '71 Lions in Australia, McLean himself asked the tour manager, Doug Smith, if he was fearful of the Lions being distracted by the lure of young women in New Zealand and behaviour that would lead to indiscipline. This is amusing because nowadays it would take a very brave rugby writer to publicly ask such a question. Smith never raised an eyebrow, nor blinked an eyelid. It was a matter, he said, they had discussed as a group before leaving home. 'It is a difficult problem,' he went on. 'As a medical practitioner in two or three villages in Essex, I am well aware of the disastrous incidence of pregnancies in young girls. All I can say is that we have put our chaps on their honour.' Ah, for a beakerful of the amateur era. It was the professional era that created the modern Lions phenomenon. The 1997 tour to South Africa was perhaps the most absorbing Lions experience of all. It was also the moment the Lions opened their front door and invited us into the living room as the forwards coach, Jim Telfer, spoke to the boys. There can't be anyone who has listened to Telfer and not been entranced. Everything is in the delivery, though there is much in the content. 'There are two types of rugby players, boys,' Telfer said quietly, but with deadly seriousness. 'There's honest ones, and there's the rest. The honest player gets up in the morning and looks himself in the f***ing mirror, and sets his standard. Sets his stall out, and says, 'I'm going to get better. I'm going to get better. I'm going to get better.' 'He doesn't complain about the food, or the beds, or the referees. Or all these sorts of things. 'These are just peripheral things that weak players have always complained about. The dishonest player. 'If I tell a player he's too high, or he's not tight enough, he's too f***ing high. He's not tight enough. And that's it. I'm the judge, and not the player. And we accept that, and we do something about it . . . 'Two weeks. There's battles all along the way. There's a battle on Saturday. There's a battle next Wednesday. There's a battle the following Saturday. A battle the following Tuesday — until we're into the f***in' big arena. The one we'll be there on Saturday. And by that time the f***in' Lions have to make them f***in' roar for us. 'Because they'll be baying for blood. Let's hope it's f***ing Springbok blood. We're focused. From now on, kid gloves are off. It's bare-knuckle f***in' stuff. And only at the end of the day will the man that's standing on his feet win the f***in' battle.' When the fly-on-the-wall documentary Living With Lions came out, Telfer was mildly shocked by the number of expletives he used. He was, after all, a headmaster, and there were many who disagreed with his language. A doctor wrote to him explaining that if he had spoken to him and his mates the way he spoke to his players, he would have walked out. Having reflected on this, Telfer said he would have told the good doctor to keep walking and not come back. He did, however, apologise to his mum, who thought his language 'terrible'. Telfer's place in Lions history is sacrosanct. Farrell will have a similar conversation with his players. They need to be honest. They need to get a lot better. This isn't the worst Lions squad but it is far from the best. Unless they become a united and fiercely committed group, they may lose to an Australia team that is improving but still some way from top class. There is some power up front but not enough, and a lack of pace and creativity in the backs. Too much now rests on the excellent Tommy Freeman. I will fervently root for the Lions, as I always have. I think this comes down to one thing. For rugby fans in the home countries, the rivalries are intense and have been for years. Everyone accepts, though, that without the other countries there is no Six Nations. The only thing worse than losing to your neighbour is not being able to play against your neighbour. When the chance comes, once every four years, to support the best guys from your rival teams, it's something to savour. Or maybe it's as simple as our home countries are our partner, the Lions are our lover. Whichever, the Lions have about three weeks to find a Test-winning team. I wish them well.


Times
4 hours ago
- Times
From Guscott's drop-goal to battered sausage on sticks: My ten Lions tours
Lions lost 4-0Coach Jim TelferTour captain Ciaran FitzgeraldBest Lions Peter Winterbottom, John Rutherford The last of the heroic long tours, which went on for ever. New Zealand was shut. It was ghastly murder in the Test series, with the Lions captain Ciaran Fitzgerald soon dubbed 'Captain Clanger', but there were endearing visits to a raft of one-horse towns via a hired Ford Anglia. The rugby was awful but nothing could ever be so bad as flogging round a windy old country seated in a creaky Fokker Friendship propellered Airfix model. Won 2-1Coach Ian McGeechanTour captain Finlay CalderBest Lions Mike Teague, Jeremy Guscott Rough. And tumble. In the era before citing officers, it often went off in every match. After the warlike second Test, the authorities agreed the showpiece third had to be disciplined for the good of rugby. After a few seconds of what became known as the 'Battle of Ballymore', Nick Farr-Jones and Robert Jones (the scrum halves!) fought each other. The legendary 'Iron' Mike Teague saw off the Wallabies' forwards. This was Sir Ian McGeechan's first tour in charge, banishing all the years of amateurish prep. Apparently, Australia's land is 'girt by sea'. Please enable cookies and other technologies to view this content. You can update your cookies preferences any time using privacy manager. Lost 2-1Coach Ian McGeechanTour captain Gavin HastingsBest Lion Martin Bayfield A grim new era, because it was the tour when too many in the class-free New Zealand public put their respect for the Lions on hold and came along to boo them on and off the field. Yet another tour was decided because the Lions were not remotely ready for the first Test and, also, a contingent of the touring group decided to drown their sorrows when not making the Test team. Amazingly, the Test the Lions won was at Athletic Park in Wellington, an ancient semi-ruin perched precariously on the edge of a precipice with storms sweeping up the valley. They served battered sausage on lollipop sticks. Other cuisine was more basic. Won 2-1Coach Ian McGeechanTour captain Martin JohnsonBest Lions Tim Rodber, Scott Gibbs The all-time height of British and Irish rugby, when Wonderwall became a rugby anthem. Battered Boks. The series glory was harder earned even than England's World Cup victory in 2003, and there was a breathtaking silence where once the home fans seethed with their own arrogance. McGeechan and Jim Telfer, the assistant coach, prepared with bared teeth; the great Martin Johnson and his men marked the passing of old Lions parties full of agreeable gentlemen enjoying the trip. There was safe bathing for us among the waves on Durban beach, out of harm's way behind the shark nets mentioned in the guidebook. Except we found out later they'd been taken away in the previous year. With minutes to go in the second Test in Durban, one Chalky Wardell, a lifetime friend of Jeremy Guscott, announced to his audience in a Bath flat: 'Guscott's going to drop a goal to win the series.' Guess what? Lost 2-1Coach: Graham HenryTour captain Martin JohnsonBest Lion Rob Henderson Arguably the most bitter Lions experience, but with a happy sting. The Lions cruised gloriously to victory in the first Test and then dominated the first half of the second. It was seemingly all over, until Jonny Wilkinson threw a horrible loose pass that was intercepted by Joe Roff of the Wallabies. From then on, a Lions team ravaged by injury and discord could not recover and they lost in the decider in Sydney. However, the victory made Australia overrate themselves, opening the way for England to win the World Cup two years later — with Jonny's drop-goal. Lost 3-0Coach Clive WoodwardTour captain Brian O'Driscoll/Gareth ThomasBest Lion Dwayne Peel Horror story, horror winter. Take me home. Sir Clive Woodward made one of the few errors of his career in recycling England's World Cup squad for the trip. After Brian O'Driscoll, the Lions captain, had been almost decapitated by a horrendous late and dangerous double tackle by Keven Mealamu and Tana Umaga, no disciplinary action was taken. The disciplinary officer was seen by the man from The Times sprinting through the international terminal at the airport. We took a break in what the guidebook called the 'winterless Bay of Islands'. It was bloody freezing. Lost 2-1Coach Ian McGeechanTour captain Paul O'ConnellBest Lion Simon Shaw An epic series, with the Lions fielding some great players — and needing to, against a great Springboks team. They were not ready for the first Test; but the second Test in Pretoria — one of the greatest games ever played — was all Lions. Until, that is, they lost two forwards and two backs inside about seven minutes of play. And until Jaque Fourie of the Springboks was awarded a vital try after key replays were never shown by the host broadcaster. To some, he appeared to be halfway up the stand as he touched down. Won 2-1Coach Warren GatlandTour captain Sam WarburtonBest Lion Leigh Halfpenny The Lions were fortunate to take the first Test — as usual, their ridiculous timetable had not allowed them to be ready. But in a poor match in Melbourne, Australia levelled the series. And then, the Lions roared in Sydney. With Alex Corbisiero mincing the Australian scrum, the Lions scored glorious tries and won the series at pace. Weak iced yellow watery stuff all round! Drawn 1-1Coach Warren GatlandTour captain Sam WarburtonBest Lion Maro Itoje Maro's match. Inspired by Maro Itoje, the Lions came thundering back in Wellington in the second Test to draw level at 1-1. The teams still could not be separated at the end of the third Test when the All Blacks were awarded a kickable penalty with the scores level and seconds remaining. As Sam Warburton recently explained to our readers, he persuaded the referee to re-examine the replay, which was not strictly allowed. He did. No penalty. Class, Sam. Lost 2-1Coach Warren GatlandTour captain Alun Wyn JonesBest Lion Duhan van der Merwe This was going through the motions during the pandemic. Watched only by the groundsmen and some distant hacks, the halting Test series never grew out of short trousers. The first Test was characterised by a Lions win and some utterly ludicrous reactions from the South Africa head coach Jacques Nienaber. The Lions could never raise the pace to take either of the second or third Tests, which they should have been capable of doing. We were followed all around by lovely ladies in a white get-up getting up our noses daily in a search for the virus. In a dramatic broadcast halfway through the tour, South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa lifted the ban on alcohol sales. Even during the pandemic, something in the beloved country — the best venue for Lions — still enriched the soul.