Ronnie Dawson obituary

Irish hooker who captained the British & Irish Lions rugby team on their 1959 tour to Australia, New Zealand and Canada

The selection of Ireland’s Ronnie Dawson to lead the British & Irish Lions on their tour of Australia, New Zealand and Canada in 1959 caused a stir at the time and, it is fair to say, in the hooker’s own Dublin home.

Dawson, who has died aged 92, later described receiving the letter from the Lions selectors telling him that he had been chosen as a tourist. By his own admission he was “still a greenhorn” and was so surprised that he screwed up the letter and threw it in the air before later discovering a sentence at the end informing him that he was also to be captain.