"The Power of Four"
English
2005
Neil Myers
Neil Myers
Background[edit]
The Lions were originally a representative team of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but players from the Irish Free State remained eligible after it left the U.K. in 1922. Donal Lenihan recalled his dissatisfaction that the U.K. anthem "God Save the Queen" was played during the 1989 tour to Australia.[2] Later Lions teams lacked any anthem.[3][4] There was similar discontent among Northern Ireland players about the use by the Ireland national team of "Amhrán na bhFiann", anthem of the Republic of Ireland. This led the Irish Rugby Football Union to commission "Ireland's Call" in 1995 as an alternative.
Legacy[edit]
The negative reception of The Power of Four was listed as one of the issues used to criticise Woodward for the failures of the tour.[23] It was also pointed out that Woodward and team manager, Bill Beaumont used The Power of Four whenever they entered into a press conference which led to the press conferences being referred to as possibly being "mistaken for a revivalist meeting".[24]
After 2005, The Power of Four became largely forgotten.[25] During the 2013 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia, ESPN jokingly suggested that The Power of Four would be remixed into a hip hop song for the third test by Pharrell Williams and would be performed by Snoop Dogg.[5]