At the end of last semester, I wrote an article on Billy O’Hora receiving the opportunity to be an Irish ambassador representing the Lions on their summer tour of New Zealand. This meant a once-in-a-lifetime trip to New Zealand to follow the Lions on their tour. A couple of months after the tour, I give him a call to find out how it went. O’Hora is incredibly good natured and easy to talk to. We launch straight into the Lions’s tour and he’s off, telling anecdotes and explaining the ins and outs of what he got up to.
To earn this opportunity, O’Hora had to create a two-minute visual presentation explaining why he was the best person for the job. The end product was a light-hearted video that has received over 7,000 views on YouTube. This success put O’Hora on a shortlist to become one of the Irish ambassadors. After an interview with the Lions Tour Manager, John Spencer, O’Hora secured his spot on the tour.
The tour was non-stop. The trip started with a meeting in the Heathrow Hilton Hotel, where ambassadors from all the Home Nations went through brand immersion training. “It was fairly strict on what we could say and what we wouldn’t say about the Lions”, he remarks. After the training day, they flew to Wellington, where they visited the All Blacks Rugby Headquarters: “Wellington was mostly meetings, we had to meet the head of New Zealand sport and the head of New Zealand rugby.” O’Hora is clearly still in awe of the headquarters. “It was like Mecca for the All Blacks. There was posters, pictures, everything you could think of. It was 10 times the size of what we have in the IRFU [Irish Rugby Football Union].”
It was like Mecca for the All Blacks. There was posters, pictures, everything you could think of. It was 10 times the size of what we have in the IRFU
Being an ambassador wasn’t all fun however. They were on a mission. “Our goal was to find out why people our age were giving up rugby and not getting involved in coaching and volunteer work.” New Zealand face problems similar to Ireland, but they have one big advantage: rugby is pretty much the only sport played there. “They want you to play as long as you can whereas over here we’re trying to get people involved in coaching and volunteer work.” However, the system in Ireland resembles the New Zealand system far more than those of the other countries who play with the Lions. In Ireland and New Zealand, clubs take a back seat to secondary schools, unlike in England, Scotland and Wales where school rugby is not taken seriously.
After the Rugby HQ, the ambassadors met the head of New Zealand sport, Peter Miskimmin. Miskimmin emphasised that there are other sports in New Zealand, but conceded that most of the attention and funding goes to the rugby team. “Their funding in New Zealand goes to the team that they think will win the most Olympic medals or will do the best on a world scale”, O’Hora explains.
O’Hora sounds notably more excited when we move on to talking about the two nights he spent in Rotorua. They were staying next to the Lions’s team and the city was packed with Lions’s fans. “It’s a small town which looks like something from 1960s America… but there was a really good atmosphere.” While in Rotorua, the ambassadors broke the world record for the largest haka. Not only this, O’Hora had a chat with Irish flanker CJ Stander, and helped the legendary Irish baggage master, Patrick “Rala” O’Reilly, hang up the jerseys in the Lion’s dressing room.
After Rotorua, they went on to Hamilton for three nights. The ambassadors got to watch the Lions beat the Chiefs, a rugby union club in New Zealand. This was clearly a highlight for O’Hora: “We got our results from college that night so it was half-time in the match and I was reloading TCD [Trinity’s website] over and over again. We passed the exams so we were all mad celebrating for the rest of the night… I actually enjoyed the Chiefs game more than the first test probably because they played really well and won.”
O’Hora also visited Hamilton Boys’ High School to watch a match between their fourth team and the Chinese under-18 team. Hamilton knew how to put on a show. At half-time, 2,500 school boys performed the haka. China was no match for the New Zealanders. “The Hamilton boys fourth team absolutely hammered China under-18. I’d say about 100-0.”
We passed the exams so we were all mad celebrating for the rest of the night… I actually enjoyed the Chiefs game more than the first test probably because they played really well and won
Next up was a trip to Auckland. There they met rugby journalist Steven Jones, with whom O’Hora had an odd encounter. “It was funny meeting him because he’s known for being controversial. He was trying to be real sly towards us and was pretending to not have seen the Lions’s team but it felt sneaky with him… he was trying to trick us into saying things.”
The first time the Lions’s got to face the All Blacks was on O’Hora’s second last night. Auckland was packed with 25,000 Lions’s fans, with plenty of Irish in attendance. As O’Hora reminisces, he is clearly surprised by this fact. After all, going on a Lions’s tour isn’t cheap. “The stories you’d hear. People spending their life savings to go.”
At a dinner the night before the first test, which the Lions lost, O’Hora bumped into Coach Warren Gatland. “It was like talking to a machine. He was talking to us but you could tell he wasn’t even listening to himself.” An interesting insight into an enigmatic figure in rugby. O’Hora also reveals that on the night in question, the atmosphere in the Lions’s camp was confident, contrary to the public’s beliefs.
The day after the first test, O’Hora had to make a presentation to the Lions’s board, outlining ways of making the tour more accessible to 16-21 year olds. He recommended making flights cheaper for that age range and changing how the tour is perceived. “One of the initiatives I had was that by promoting it as a bag-packing trip, the way people go interrailing. Hopefully, for the next year, you might be able to see some of the changes we came up with to make it more accessible.” Their time in Auckland finished with a dinner in the Sky Tower. What faced O’Hora next was a trip home that would take 46 hours, including a 15-hour flight. Not a trip for the faint hearted. O’Hora admits that coming back to reality wasn’t easy: “The day I came home I just wanted to think about how I’m going to get to South Africa in four years for the next one.”
As I talk to O’Hora, the Trinity rugby season looms. O’Hora sets out his goal for me: “The aim would be to play as much first team games as I can.” Personally, I won’t bet against anything O’Hora sets his mind to.
