'A mammoth undertaking' - Lions' life on the road
Boiling four nations down to one team, cooking up a gameplan in four weeks and getting to Test match temperature on enemy territory.A Lions tour is unique for players and coaches.But for the team behind the team, a whistle-stop itinerary, vast distances and a host of unknowns also present a recipe for potential disaster.Safely in Sydney for the tourists' final stop, Tom Day is one of the team to help avert it."This is a mammoth undertaking when you consider transporting a playing squad and backroom team to and from the southern hemisphere, and then around the touring country itself," says Day, the team's logistics manager.
The Lions come with considerable baggage - almost 10 tonnes were brought to Australia with them.It consists of four sets of identical training kits, which were then divided up and sent around Australia. Wherever the Lions arrive, they find a lorry container of equipment, including a scrum sled, on the side of the pitch to help them prepare.One set was driven the 2,390 miles from Perth to Sydney, a distance equivalent to London to Siberia, to be in the right place at the right time. In total, the plan stretches to 53 separate truck journeys covering about 7,000 miles.
"One set of kit will always be ahead of us and the sets of kit yo-yo around the country, so that when we leave one city, the arrival into the next city is already sorted as there is kit there and the hotels and training grounds are already set-up," explains Day.He is also part of an advance party that is one step ahead of the squad on the ground. Along with a member of the security team, Day makes sure any last-minute wrinkles that have cropped up since recce trips in September and January are ironed out before the players arrive.After Saturday's third Test in Sydney, the Lions will head back home with a series win, but without their kit.It is being left in Australia and donated to local clubs and schools, rather than shipped back to Dublin.
The long-haul nature of a Lions tour means it also comes with considerable carbon cost.A return flight from London to Sydney generates around 2,484 kg of carbon dioxide per passenger, just from the burning of fuel. Emissions at high altitude are also almost three times more harmful than at ground level.The Lions have committed to offsetting all of the carbon, external created by their tour party's travel, as well as that created by their fans' travel and the team's business operations at a cost of more than £250,000.
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