1989: The Lions Return to Australia

A Tour Years in the Making

- Clem Thomas, Greg Thomas and Rob Cole

When the 1989 party arrived in Perth they were the first to only visit Australia on a Lions Tour since the Rev. Mullineux's side in 1899. It was also the only sizeable Tour to Australia since 1959, when the Lions played six matches there.

The new-style Lions Tour was cut back even further than in 1983 (18) to a dozen matches, but whether Australia had the strength and facilities to sustain even a 12-match Tour was a major talking point before it began. Australian rugby had been in a parlous state throughout the 1970s, but during recent years they had really put their house in order, and demonstrated this when Andrew Slack's team, coached by the maverick Alan Jones, whitewashed the Home Unions on their 1984 Tour of Britain and Ireland.

Following the England tour there in 1988, when they were beaten in both Tests and by New South Wales, the Lions knew what to expect.