The day the Lions beat a team of tradies and teachers by 100 points

“I’m looking at [England winger] Dan Luger and thinking, ‘This is going to be ridiculously hard’. I knew we were going to lose the game, of course. But I didn’t expect it to be such a blowout. We just really struggled to pull them to ground.”

Barugh and his teammates trained twice a week with their clubs in Perth, on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work.

Two months out from the Lions game, that training schedule was ramped up, with extra sessions for the state on Monday and Wednesdays. Even that didn’t prepare them for the reality of facing the best players in the world.

Barugh came off the bench with half an hour left in the game. His first assignment: stop rampaging forward Scott Quinnell.

“My first contact was trying to pull down Quinnell,” Barugh remembers. “I just held on, but there were some secondary tacklers. Then, when you’re standing at the scrum and he breaks off the back of the scrum and he’s running straight at you…

“I knew exactly who Quinnell was. I’m like, ‘My word, this guy’s running straight at me’. It was amazing.”

Barugh managed to score one of Western Australia’s two tries, finishing in the corner of the WACA Ground on 66 minutes for the stadium’s scoreboard to read 10-83. It was to prove the highlight of the game for the home fans.

“The ball is down and I’m sensing the crowd and tapping the ground for some weird reason,” Barugh said. “Then our captain, Trevor Thomas, he’s hoisted me up off the ground.

“It was amazing, but very short-lived, because then we were back into plugging holes, defence mode – because they’re putting on another 33 points against us.”

At the end of the game, Barugh and his teammates sat shell-shocked in the changing room before turning up for a post-match function still trying to process what had happened.

Over two decades later, Barugh can reflect with pride on the night a team of accountants, tradies and teachers took on the best in the world.

“It really was a hallmark game of amateur versus professional, probably the last ever one [for the Lions],” Barugh said. “It’s easy in hindsight to go, ‘This was a fixture that probably should have been thought through a little bit more’.

“But for anyone that represents their state, it’s an incredibly proud moment. To be up against the best in the world and to have that opportunity, you’re pinching yourself.

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“It’s ridiculous that you find yourself in that situation, but there are lifetime memories, regardless of what the scoreline was. That was probably the least important thing for us.”

All nine matches of The British & Irish Lions Tour to Australia are live & on demand on Stan Sport, with Wallabies Tests in 4K. All Test matches live and free on Channel 9 & 9Now.

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