Rarely leaving the pitch without bleeding, John would light up the Tercer Tiempo with verses from Sloop John B (a curious condition of holding the Lions captaincy is that you have to love singing... You don’t need to be good at it, but you need to love it). 

As good as he was on the pitch, John was mostly a disappointment off it. Drunk after half a shandy, he once went up to Javier Bardem and a friend who were sitting at a table in Finnegans and asked for an autograph. The actor, an ex-rugby player himself, started to take out a pen when John shot him a look.. "Not you mate, your friend - isn't he the captain of the Spanish rugby team or something?" Bardem was understandably dumbfounded.

He could win the ball from any lineout with his giant magnet hands. Then he would turn his back to the opposition, plant his feet, hold the ball out towards his forwards and expect us to do all the work from there on. But that was if he got going.

During warmups and sometimes during the match, he’d come up to other players and demand that they punch him or slap him in the face to get his adrenalin flowing. After the match, he was partial to a drop of cider, a sing-song and jumping off tables.

Luckily he came to his senses and returned to the Lions three months later - an incident that was quickly forgotten and no-ones ever reminds him of.

A formidable Number 8 standing at 6ft 8in and 18 stone, he continues to play with us today. The son of a pioneering Irish Celtic Rock band frontman, singing is in Paul's blood. It's quite difficult to make him stop.

Don't give him a microphone, please. He clearly doesn't need one.

Oli is known amongst his enemies for a deadly sidestep in spite of two wobbly reconstructed knees. A beast on the pitch but a pure gentleman off it (as well as a friendish man for the pints once he gets going).

Oli encapsulates all it is to be a modern-day Lion.