Unhappy snapper: Will Carling discovered he is now out of focus

"Excuse me," said the supporter in full Lions garb. "Any chance of a picture?"

"Certainly," said Carling, moving to stand aside Wood.

"Great!" said the fan, before putting his arm around Wood and handing Carling his camera. "The boys in Cork will never believe that I bumped into Keith Wood."

A crestfallen Carling then took the snap.

You couldn't make it up. And I haven't, as this wonderful scene was played out within yards of a gathering of highly amused journalists.

Confession

It was estimated that 20,000 Lions supporters had descended on Brisbane - each with his or her own story to tell.

One policeman from the Met was happy to tell other punters in a bar how he had got time off on the sick to fly to Australia and watch the Test series.

Later in the evening he was said to be less talkative after being spotted by one of his senior officers who was on holiday with one of the official tour parties.

The Lions have left their Brisbane heroics behind them and headed for Canberra, where first item on their agenda was listening to a second choice scrum-half explain The Secret Diary of Matt Dawson (aged 28 and a half).

Dawson's apology was delivered to the other 36 players from behind a chair in the team room. If he imagined they would listen in silence and then praise him for his honesty and bravery in giving the confession then he was sadly deluded.

Write stuff, wrong time: Matt Dawson's diary comments have caused a stir

"Stone him!. . . string him up! . . .hanging's too good for him!" were some of the kinder comments from the back as well as a fair amount of pantomime booing.

Few of the squad disagree with his sentiments that they have been bruised and bored by too much training and too many team meetings.

But as one player put it: "You don't s*** on your own doorstep. If Matt thinks he's training too much and not seeing enough of Australia then he should use some of his earnings to come back for a holiday."

His Daily Telegraph earnings, perhaps.

You would have thought we had seen enough hot air on this tour already, especially with most of the Aussie pundits predicting winning margins for the Wallabies in the first Test of between 10 and 20 points.

But perhaps anxious to help rid Canberra of its image as a dull and humourless town, some local girls decided to liven things up for the Lions before they checked into their team hotel on Sunday night.

They somehow managed to set off all the hotel sprinklers which meant that along with the welcoming party for Graham Henry and Co. were some enormous and deafening industrial driers as part of the mopping up operation in the hotel lobby.