Donal Lenihan: A memorable year when I embraced the Rising Sun and won a cap at 59

I thought my days of accumulating caps finished a long time ago, but not so. Thirty-three years after featuring for the British and Irish Lions as part of the IRB’s centenary celebrations in Cardiff, test recognition yielded just that.

The 1986 Lions were due to tour South Africa but for the first time, World Wars apart, since the ground-breaking pioneers trekked to New Zealand and Australia in 1888, the tour was cancelled due to the apartheid regime in the country.