British and Irish Lions forward Ollie Chessum has revealed what he found to be \u201cthe worst bit\u201d of their recent tour to Australia.<\/p>\n
The squad led by Andy Farrell won the Test series 2-1, and England lock Chessum played a part in all three matches.<\/p>\n
There were appearances off the bench in games one and three in Brisbane and Sydney, and a start in the engine room with Maro Itoje in the second match<\/a> in Melbourne. It was at MCG when the Lions clinched the series victory with a match to spare, Hugo Keenan\u2019s late try securing the tourists a 29-26 victory.<\/p>\n The celebrations after that victory were branded as \u201cchaotic\u201d by Chessum<\/a>, but he was disappointed with what unfolded the following weekend in Sydney. It wasn\u2019t the Lions losing 14-22 that annoyed him most; it was the lack of mingling between the teams after the series finale, which struck him as odd.<\/p>\n Appearing on For The Love Of Rugby<\/a>, Chessum said: \u201cDo you know what \u2013 and Geoff (Parling, the Wallabies assistant who is now Leicester head coach) pointed this out, this is probably the worst bit about it, we finished the third match and the teams didn\u2019t really mingle.<\/p>\n \u201cWe sort of kept ourselves to ourselves\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGeoff came into the Lions changing room and had a pint. The thing is, our season finished there but for those (Australian) boys, they had to go again. So it was a bit different for them, but you would have just thought there would have been a bit more of a mix in.<\/p>\n \u201cLike, I saw (ex-Leicester teammate) Harry Potter after the first Test and swapped shirts, but I thought there would be a bit more of that after the third Test and there wasn\u2019t really. We sort of kept ourselves to ourselves and so did the Wallabies boys.\u201d<\/p>\n What Chessum had to say struck a chord with two-time Lions tourist Anthony Watson<\/a>, who was co-hosting the show with Ben Youngs. \u201cThat might be the one time I actually advocate one of those post-match dinners is after the last Test for the Lions<\/a>. Any other time categorically no.\u201d<\/p>\n PREM Rugby Team of the Week: Marcus Smith \u2018proves a point\u2019 while England hopefuls takes \u2018giant stride\u2019 towards Test selection<\/a><\/p>\n Why \u2018extremely ambitious\u2019 reason convinced England and Lions star to commit his future to Prem club<\/a><\/p>\n Back to Chessum, who added about the series clincher in Melbourne: \u201cIt was so good, unreal. Absolute chaos. But won a series, so can\u2019t complain. The flight from Melbourne to Sydney was chaos. Everyone was ropey. Literally off the plane, onto a bus, straight to the bar.\u201d<\/p>\n His victory with the Lions was a career highlight. \u201cIt\u2019s hard (to quantify it). Winning something with Leicester, you know that\u2019s unreal. Then you have this dream of playing for your country, and I never ever thought the Lions would be a thing, but it has to go top really. It\u2019s once every four years.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s luck really, you have to be on form, have to be fit to go those tours. There have been players throughout the history of the game who have never been on a Lions tour, so to have gone there and won one, it has to go near the top, if not top.\u201d<\/p>\n Northampton v Leicester: Five takeaways as \u2018razor sharp\u2019 French maestro seals bragging rights but victory soured by injury to England star<\/a><\/p>\n Chessum is now back at Leicester, where Parling has now taken over as the boss from Michael Cheika following a 2024\/25 campaign that ended with a Premiership final defeat to Bath at Twickenham.<\/p>\n The England forward is enjoying the change. \u201cIt has been class,\u201d he vouched. \u201cIt\u2019s weird when you come in and there is a new coach.<\/p>\n \u201cI rocked up to a social a couple of weeks ago, a team get-together in a pub, I walked in and I felt like a new kid, there were so many new faces, so many new staff members. But that\u2019s the challenge: how quickly can we get back to where we were?<\/p>\n \u201cGeoff has been brilliant; the coaches have been brilliant and it\u2019s weird. They put a stat up the other day where the average age of our squad now is 24. I\u2019ve turned 25, so I am older than the average age of the squad.\u201d<\/p>\n