PUT IT IN YOUR DIARY - THE LIONS FIXTURES HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED

For the Lions a tour victory in New Zealand is the Holy Grail. Only once have they beaten the All Blacks, in 1971. And despite the Kiwis failure to win the World Cup beating them on their home turf is far from a foregone conclusion. The All Blacks are still the most succesful international sports team in the world, with a higher win ratin than any other international team in any sport. The level of passion and obsession with the game there is almost scary - it has to be the only country in the world to have 2 TV channels devoted exclusively to Rugby in addition to the usual 2 or 3 sports channels on cable/satellite.

The itinerary is awesome - 3 tests on consecutive weekends allowing for a momentum to be built up, and more importantly plenty of skiing and wine tasting in-between. My only complaint is that they are not playing in Dunedin - any place that has a stadium called the House of Pain has got to be worth going to.

Where's the Cathay timetable?


UPDATE - my lack of knowledge of NZ geography has been shown up. The game vs Otago on 18 June is at Dunedin. Excellent.

For those who want the fixture list here it is...

JUNE
4 vs Bay of Plenty - Rotorua
8 vs Taranaki - New Plymouth
11 vs New Zealand Maori - Hamilton
15 vs Wellington - Wellington
18 vs Otago - Dunedin
21 vs Southland - Invercargill
25 vs NEW ZEALAND, FIRST TEST - Christchurch
28 vs Manawatu - Palmerston North

JULY
2 vs NEW ZEALAND, SECOND TEST - Wellington
9 vs NEW ZEALAND, THIRD TEST - Auckland