The inside story of how Andy Farrell turned the Lions into record-breakers: NIK SIMON reveals the secrets of head coach's success from Bono to boxing - and how he 'pushes players' buttons'

Early on Tuesday morning, Andy Farrell asked one of his coaches to head over the Sydney Harbour Bridge to arrange a Squid Game set on the Lions’ training pitch.

The Lions have been on the road for almost two months and this was one of the coach’s ways of freshening things up as he approaches the last few days of the tour. A sudden-death shootout, on some school playing fields, based on the Korean Netflix blockbuster.

If his preparations go to plan, Farrell will become the first coach of the professional era to lead the Lions to a clean sweep, putting himself firmly in the hot seat to lead the tourists again in four years’ time.

Assistant coach Andrew Goodman was among those given one of the iconic jumpsuits. 'We played the green light, red light game,’ revealed Goodman, referring to a challenge in the series when the contestants must cross from one side of a room to another when a green light is on, and stop stock still when the red light is on.

Those still moving when the red light shows are eliminated - quite literally, in the Netflix series, and less definitively in the Lions camp.

‘The whole field was covered in Squid Game equipment,' added Goodman. 'The staff were dressed up in all the kit, the speakers were all set up. The whole field was covered in different things they could hide behind, and they had people in the top keeping an eye on people.

‘Andy’s always big on having fun as a group. Little challenges he’ll have at the start of meetings, there’s always a bit of craic, a bit of a laugh involved. It keeps the boys engaged and fresh.’ 

At half time of the second Test, when the Lions were trailing to the Wallabies, Farrell promised his players that it would be one of the greatest nights of their lives if they came back from behind to beat Australia.

His words of inspiration worked. Players have compared his team-talks to something out of a Hollywood movie, pushing buttons and channelling raw emotion.

His motivational talk paid off at the MCG and the Lions clinched the series with a game to spare. The celebrations lasted for two days, with Bundee Aki and Mack Hansen being the chief ringleaders.

‘Faz loves a social,’ explained Mike Catt, who played with Farrell for England and coached alongside him for Ireland until 2023. ‘Back in the playing days, he enjoyed himself on and off the pitch. He loved life, loved new things, loved a singalong, loved Oasis. He was very good on a guitar and very good on a microphone.

‘Working with him in Ireland, all the coaches, all the analysts, we had a flipping cracking time. We got an invite from Bono to go and see U2 at the Dome in Vegas. He got Bono to come in and speak to the boys before the World Cup.

'Little things like that. His approach is that you’ve got to love what you do and love the environment. When you have someone like Bono come in, you feel like you can take on the world.’

Irish boxing world champion Katie Taylor was the figure Farrell turned to for inspiration last weekend. He played an inspiring video message from Taylor before the Test, calling on his players to be prepared to win with skill but also be ready to win by will.

‘His ability to motivate and his speeches are phenomenal,’ added Catt. ‘As a player, he spoke a lot of common sense.

'He came over to union and we had guys like Ben Kay, Olly Barkley and Jonny Wilkinson whose knowledge of the game was a lot further ahead than his was. He had his opinions but he didn’t jump up and down, he was prepared to sit back and listen.

‘It was his curiosity that moved him forwards. His curiosity to know every little bit of detail about the game was and is phenomenal. In one of the first weeks I worked with him in Ireland, he was talking about left shoulders of scrummaging tighthead props with the scrum coach. I didn’t even know that and I’d been in the game 20 years.

'He’s very quick at seeing detail on the pitch. His speeches are phenomenal. Very special. It’s hard to put your finger on it but when he speaks, it’s genuine, it comes from deep within. The players and the people around him feel that and would go for war for him. He’s exceptionally good at pushing buttons but it’s just totally genuine.’

Yes, it would be nice to see more of the old traditions, like Warren Gatland’s choir schools, but it is hard to pick holes in the job Farrell has done so far.

No Lions team has completed a clean sweep since a 4-0 romp on the tour of Argentina in 1927, when the head coach was James Baxter, an Olympic silver medallist in rowing who was born on the Wirral, just 25 miles away from Farrell's home town in Wigan.

And before that? Only one whitewash - the first official Test tour back in 1891 in South Africa, when the touring team was still known as 'England' despite containing four Scots.

The key to bringing the 2025 team to the brink of ending the 98-year wait has been unity.

‘Whether they are involved in Test matches are midweek games, it doesn’t feel like there has been any separation in the group whatsoever,’ added Goodman. ‘He’s had his finger on the pulse the whole time.

'He’s a great man motivator, he’s a great man around connecting the wider staff and management group as well. I’m learning stuff of him every day, he’s an amazing coach and it’s a privilege to work underneath him.’

Should Farrell wrap up the series this weekend, it is hard to see anyone challenging him for the top job of leading the Lions to New Zealand in 2029.