Welcome back to the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from the Times and the Sunday Times.

The Lions tour is over and it is time for our roundup.

Final reflections on the series and where the behemoth that is the modern Lions

finds itself following the 2025 tour.

I'm Alfie Reynolds with Will Kelleher, Alex Lowe, Owen Slot and Jens.

We were hoping for this podcast to be rooftop, harbour bridge one side, Sydney Opera House the other. We are in the Glenmore Hotel, but we have had to scamper inside. It is still raining in Sydney. It's ridiculous, isn't it? I actually haven't seen anything like this, Slotty. You've been to Sydney quite a lot through decades of doing this job,

but has it ever been as ridiculous as this, the weather? No, I just feel Sydney's weather sun shines. I just don't get it. It was pretty bad. The end of the O'3 World Cup, it rained quite a lot, didn't it? That semi-final against France was all played in the rain. Johnny's drop goals. Johnny's drop goals was all in the rain.

And it rained for the final two. I seem to remember. That's Alex for you.

See, I've retrofitted, we've talked about retrofitting. I've retrofitted sunshine over the whole of the O3 World Cup, even though it was a really tough hard experience.

Some games had a roof on them didn't they?

Yeah. Telstra Dome which is now the Marvel. England's 16 man game against some other. Oh Dan Luga going on. Yeah. The O3 final was really wet. Yes. That was sopping. I think the

semi was even wetter. The semi was dreadful yeah yeah. I love that we've started our Lions Roundup

when we're doing weather in Sydney

and the 03 World Cup already.

I mean, I don't know if we're interesting anyone at the moment,

but wettest lions game of all time.

That's got to be...

It's got to be Saturday, although...

I'm thinking first test 05 in Christchurch. Come on, Alex. You were there? I wasn't actually. Oh. I did the first half of that tour. I've been something Alex hasn't been to. I did the first half of that tour and then didn't... Are you retrofitting him in the tour? Because you could see where it was going. Yes. Yeah.

There were other colleagues who had to wait until half time in the second test to book their flights home. I was gone before the first test. Wellington 17 was very well. Wellington 17, I was going to say. Second game. Yeah, that was wet. But that was nothing like a Saturday night. No. No. It was absurd. There's some amazing. So people get, it'll be on the times by now. But Mark Aspland, our great friend and colleague, does his unseen gallery that we've actually contributed to. We are guest editors, no, guest contributors. Contributors, yeah. Photographers, I guess. But Mark, who's actually an award-winning photographer, has taken some amazing shots.

So go and find them. My favourite one is where genuine sheets of white rain, and he's got this brilliant sort of long-exposure-y-type picture,

which is definitely not the technical term for it, but we could actually see it.

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