1927 British Lions tour to Argentina
Date	24 July – 21 August
Coach	James Baxter
Tour captain	David MacMyn
Test series winners	British Isles (4–0)
Top test point scorer	Ernie Hammett (40)
Summary	P W D L
Total	09 09 00 00
Test match	04 04 00 00
Opponent	P W D L
Argentina	4 4 0 0
Tour chronology
← South Africa 1924 New Zealand and Australia 1930 →

During its second tour toArgentina, theBritish Isles team, formed byEnglish andScottish players,^[1] played 9 matches in the country, winning all of them with more than 295 points scored and only 9 conceded.^[2]

TheRiver Plate Rugby Union (RPRU, current "Argentine Rugby Union") had formed a commission to study how to bring a British team into the country. To do so they had to have the sum ofm$n 25,000 (about£ 3,000 at that time) to pay the travel and subsistence costs of a staff of twenty-five people.^[3] With contributions from clubs, newspaper companies, stores such as Gath and Chaves, British railroads and refrigerators and personal contributions, 30,000 pesos were collected. In mid-1926 theRFU received an invitation from the RPRU, requesting for a team of "first class players" to visit Argentina for three or four weeks. The delegation should be of 25 people including a manager and a referee. The RFU responded affirmatively after consulting theInternational Board.

On July 19, 1927, a team composed of twenty-three players from England, Scotland and Ireland under the direction ofJames Baxter, none other than the president of the RFU, and a first-class referee, arrived in Buenos Aires and settled in the headquarters ofHurlingham Club for a fixture of nine games.

Fulfilling the request of the RPRU, this British combined was considerably stronger than the one that had been assembled in1910. No less than fifteen of the twenty-three players were internationals or future internationals. His captain,David MacMyn, was a leading Scottish forward who had been part of the team that won its firstGrand Slam in1925 and shared the title of theFive Nations withIreland in1926. During the long sea voyage to Argentina, MacMyn made good use of onboard time for his men to train and make a tactical plan for the tour.

We were all imbued with the desire to play as it should be played, and there was no laziness in our preparation on board the ship. We train hard. Every morning we had practice of scrum, backs, physical training of all kinds and swimming before lunch. At night we had many conversations in front of the blackboard and we made all kinds of plans. And so, the hard training and the free exchange of ideas stimulated us for the exhausting days that we had ahead.

In their first games, the Lions played an Anglo-Argentine combined and the Argentine championSan Isidro, which had won eight consecutivedomestic championships to date. The Lions won those games with no goals conceded.

The following game was the first test v.Argentina, played on 31 July atGimnasia y Esgrima stadium. It was the first time Argentina wore the horizontal light blue and white jersey (after wearing blue and white jerseys alternatively since its first match in 1910) after a proposal byGimnasia y Esgrima executive Abelardo Gutiérrez.^[5] The match was attended by a record 12,000 spectators. After the match, MacMyn wrote: "The crowd was delighted. They were impressed by the fact that we played in silence, listening only to the captain's voice. Argentines have all the physical qualities required for rugby. They are big, strong and fast. They are tremendously enthusiastic –sometimes, excessively".^[4]

After playing Argentina, the Lions moved to the cityRosario inSanta Fe Province to play a combined team composed by players ofporteños clubsUniversitario andGimnasia y Esgrima due to the impossibility of joining a competitive team with the small number of players in Rosario. Players of both teams arrived in Rosario after a long journey by train fromRetiro toRosario Norte station, the same day of the match. Held inPlaza Jewell, home venue ofClub Atlético del Rosario, the Lions defeated the combined team by 24–0 in a rainy day.

The Lions returned to Buenos Aires to play the second test v. Argentina, winning 46–0 at GEBA, then playing another combined team (composed by players ofBelgrano A.C. andBuenos Aires F.C.). The team would play two games more against the national team, the last of them on 21 August.^[4]

Team kit

Player	Position	Club	Born / National team	1st test	2nd test	3rd test	4th test
Roger Wakefield	Forward	Cambridge Univ.	(uncapped)
Jack Wallens	Fullback		England	Y		Y	Y
AF Hamilton Smythe	Three-Quarter		(uncapped)			Y
Robert Kelly	Three-Quarter		Scotland	Y	Y		Y
Edward Taylor	Wing	Oxford Univ.	Scotland		Y	Y	Y
Carl Aarvold	Wing	Cambridge Univ.	England[n1 1]	Y	Y	Y	Y
Peter Douty	Scrum-half		Scotland		Y	Y
George McIlwaine	Flanker	Cambridge Univ.	South Africa[n1 2]	Y	Y	Y	Y
AD Allen	F. Prop	Cambridge Univ.	(uncapped)	Y	Y	Y	Y
Granville Coghlan	Lock	Cambridge Univ.	England[n1 2]		Y		Y
Thomas Gubb	Lock	Oxford Univ.	South Africa[n1 2]			Y
Donald Troup	Lock/Flanker	Oxford Univ.	(uncapped)	Y		Y
Eric Coley	Flanker		England[n1 3]		Y		Y
Theodore Pike	Flanker	Lansdowne	Ireland	Y
Douglas Law	Hooker		England	Y	Y	Y	Y
Charles Payne	Prop		Ireland	Y	Y	Y	Y
David MacMyn (C)	Number 8	London Scottish	Scotland	Y	Y	Y	Y
Ernie Hammett	Three-Quarter		England	Y	Y	Y
James Farrell	Lock	Bective Rangers	Ireland	Y	Y	Y	Y
Wilf Sobey	Scrum-half	Old Millhillians	England[n1 4]	Y	Y		Y
Jules Malfroy	Scrum-half	Cambridge Univ.	New Zealand[n1 2]
Roger Spong	Fly-half	Old Millhillians	England[n1 3]	Y	Y	Y	Y
Guy Wilson	Wing		England[n1 3]	Y			Y

• Manager:James "Bim" Baxter

Notes

The Lions in action during the third test v. Argentina at Gimnasia y Esgrima

#	Date	Rival	City	Venue	Score
1	24 Jul	Anglo–Argentinos[n2 1]	Hurlingham	Hurlingham Club	27–0
2	27 Jul	San Isidro	Buenos Aires	Belgrano A.C.	14–0
3	31 Jul	Argentina	Buenos Aires	Gimnasia y Esgrima	37–0
4	3 Aug	GEBA /CUBA Combined	Rosario	Plaza Jewell	24–0
5	7 Aug	Argentina	Buenos Aires	Gimnasia y Esgrima	46–0
6	10 Aug	Belgrano /Buenos Aires Combined	Buenos Aires	Belgrano A.C.	44–3
7	14 Aug	Argentina	Buenos Aires	Gimnasia y Esgrima	34–3
8	15 Aug	Combinado de Clubes[n2 2]	Buenos Aires	Gimnasia y Esgrima	29–3
9	21 Aug	Argentina	Buenos Aires	Gimnasia y Esgrima	43–0

Notes

31 July 1927

Argentina	0–37	British Isles
	Report	Try: Aarvold, Hammett, Kelly, MacMyn, Payne, Spong, Wilson (2) Con: Hammett (3) Pen: Hammett Drop: Spong

Gimnasia y Esgrima, Buenos Aires Attendance: 12,000 Referee:Thomas Vile (Wales)

Argentina

British Isles

7 August 1927

Argentina	0–46	British Isles
		Try: Aarvold (4), Kelly (2), McIlwaine, MacMyn, Payne, Spong Con: Hammett (6) Drop: Hammett

Gimnasia y Esgrima, Buenos Aires Referee:Thomas Vile (Wales)

14 August 1927

Argentina	3–34	British Isles
Goal from mark: Torino		Try: Douty, Hamilton-Smythe (2), McIlwaine, Taylor (3) Con: Hammett (5) Pen: Hammett

Gimnasia y Esgrima, Buenos Aires Referee:Thomas Vile (Wales)

21 August 1927

Argentina	0–43	British Isles
		Try: Aarvold (3), Coghlan, Kelly (2), McIlwaine, MacMyn, Sobey, Spong, Wilson Con: Wilson (5)

Gimnasia y Esgrima, Buenos Aires Referee:Thomas Vile (Wales)

The British Lions tour on Argentina was a huge success, with a great number of people attending the games in spite of the large defeats to the national team. The RPRU obtained a profit of almost m$n 65,000,^[8] which would be invested in mortgage titles to cost future tours with no help from the National State or other government subsidies.

In sporting terms, the tour of the British team of 1927 was of great importance forArgentine rugby, which gave a powerful boost to the expansion of the game in the country. 33 teams were registered to the Union to play at the 1927 domestic championships (four teams more than the previous edition). The boost given by the British team tour also encouraged the creation of new rugby clubs, such asOlivos in 1927 andLos Matreros one year later.^[4]

• Mackern, Hugo,Historia del rugby argentino 1917-1930, Buenos Aires, 1986
• Búsico, Jorge, y Cloppet, Alejandro,Ser Puma, 2° edition, Buenos Aires: Zona de Tackle, 2012
• Jones, Stephen,Behind the Lions, Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd., 2013
• Thomas, Clem & Thomas, Greg,The British & Irish Lions Official History, Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1966, 2013

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