In 2009, Jamie Roberts became a British and Irish Lions star in South Africa despite having just one year of Test rugby under his belt. In 2013, his chance of a Lions series victory appeared gone due to injury, only for him to make a Lazarus-like recovery.

Sitting in a hotel coffee shop away from the drizzling Sydney rain, he ponders his own Lions experiences as the 2025 vintage nears its conclusion.

The response is pretty emphatic.

“Playing for the Lions changed my life,” Roberts tells Sky Sports. “It epitomises everything that’s great about rugby, and there’s nothing like it in world sport.

“There’s nothing comparable in the whole of sport.

“It’s just an amazing brotherhood. When I refer to my career, it’s the greatest thing I ever did.

“Of course I care about what I won and lost, but the fact I travelled with the game and used it as a passport to see the world is the best thing.

“There’s not many other lines of work where you can play in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It’s unparalleled.

“It’s as professional now as it’s ever been, but that streak of amateurism that runs through the Lions is the jewel in the crown for me. It connects people better than any other rugby institution, it connects history better than anything else.

“As a player, you’re well aware of the team’s past, the legacy of those players and the responsibility to produce.”

Roberts finished his rugby career in Australia in 2022, playing a single season with the Waratahs in Super Rugby and living in Manly where his wife is from. “A second home for me now,” he says.

Before that, his was a career he admits he never even dreamed of, winning Six Nations titles in 2008, 2012 and 2013 – the first two as Grand Slams – while also featuring in a Rugby World Cup semi-final in 2011. Between 2008 and 2017 he won 94 Test caps for Wales.

The summers of 2009 and 2013 stick out, though – the weeks and months Roberts represented the Lions in South Africa and then Australia.

‘I went through every emotion possible in my Lions career’

As a 22-year-old, Roberts battled self-doubt and nerves as Sir Ian McGeechan selected him in 2009, forming a fabulous midfield pairing with Brian O’Driscoll in an epically tight series.

Having first become mesmerised by the Lions in 1997 at the age of 11, Roberts admits it was somewhat surreal for the head coach from that tour in McGeechan to be the very man selecting him to wear the same crest.

“I lived a full rollercoaster of emotions in both my Lions tours. Went through the ringer, peaks and troughs.

“In 2009 I’d only played one season of Test rugby. Was I surprised to be there? I had a good Six Nations and I was in a very good Cardiff team.

“On reflection, I was playing well enough to be picked, but at the time you’re young, naive, and the Lions always felt maybe beyond me.

“I was a young kid and suddenly I was picked, thinking: ‘Oh s***.’

“I turned up to training at Pennyhill Park with Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell, Ronan O’Gara, Stephen Jones, Gethin Jenkins, Mike Phillips there, all these guys I grew up watching and all of a sudden was rubbing shoulders with in the changing room.

“I forged a good partnership with Brian, played well and then found myself in the Test side. It happened so quickly.

“On Lions tours you have the individual goal within the team goal, if that makes sense. Everyone wants to play in the Test team but you’re there to win a series as a squad.

“That was always the biggest challenge for me, trying to juggle that. We’re all competitive animals, competing with your good mates for the same thing.

“Then when I felt like I belonged, there was heartache. To play in the second Test at Loftus Versveld, the regard in which that game is spoken about as a Test rugby match, the drama of it, unfortunately we came out on the wrong end.

“It was just devastating, but so privileged to have been involved in it.

“I lost that Lions series by an 80th-minute 55-metre kick by Morne Steyn, lost a World Cup semi-final by a point in 2011 and a Champions Cup semi-final in 2009 by a penalty shoot-out.

“It’s brutal, but that’s the way it has to be. You have to lose to appreciate what winning and the margins at the very top really feel like.

“As much as those losses are crushing and they’re very hard, they’re some of the most amazing memories because they triggered emotions in you that you’ve never got anywhere else.”

‘With the Lions, there’s nostalgia around every corner’

Four years after Steyn’s decisive kick and a 2-1 Lions series loss to the Springboks, Warren Gatland picked a more established Roberts to face the Wallabies, only for injury to heavily disrupt his tour.

The Lions won a tight first Test in Brisbane, and then lost by a point in Melbourne to set up a third-Test series decider in Sydney.

“I got injured a week out from the first Test, my hamstring, and was ruled out of the first two.

“I just remember being in the changing room after that Waratahs game, and the Lions brings nostalgia around every corner.

“I grew up watching Lions videos and always vividly remember Rob Howley getting injured in 1997, and footage of him crying on the physio bed with his shoulder out. Rob was my coach with Wales for a decade.

“I just remember being sat on the physio bed in Sydney bawling my eyes out and Rob Howley walks in as coach. And I’m thinking: ‘You went through this 16 years ago. This was you and I’m living it now.’

“I was playing well, the backline was taking shape, and then bang, I thought it was all over and I’d never play in a Lions match again. It was devastating.

“To this day I count myself so fortunate that Prav Mathema, head of medical, and Warren Gatland made the decision to keep me on.

“I iced my hamstring every four hours for two weeks, through the night and everything.

“I got back, did some sprinting, told Warren I was fine and was picked, but I remember waking up the morning of the third Test in absolute agony.

“I had this horrible dilemma: ‘If I play here and come off in the first minute, I’ve really let the team down. But this is the biggest moment of my life and career.’

“I was in pain but you end up trusting the medics and backing them because they’ve backed you. They’ve seen you run and perform. They’ve backed how robust you’re going to be in a Test match.

“The coaches and medics backed me, so any self-doubts I had to erase pretty quickly.

“I remember going to Prav and asking him for the most legal, strongest stuff possible. I maxed out on painkillers, suppositories. Literally anything.

“Adrenaline did the rest. I woke up on Tuesday and Wednesday after that Test match picking up injuries I hadn’t felt for three days.

“It was incredible. The lads that suffered the heartache in 2009 got to live the ecstasy of 2013. The contrast was just amazing. Rugby is a sport that evokes all the emotions in players, fans, coaches. It’s what we love about it.

“When I try and bottle my Lions experiences as a player, it covers all bases. I went through every emotion possible.”

Introducing Dr Roberts…

In terms of what’s next for Roberts, he reveals his first stint as an NHS doctor begins upon his arrival back to the UK.

Roberts studied medicine throughout his playing days, graduating in 2013, but deferred the next stage due to his rugby career.

“My first shift is next week. I sat an exam in November to come back in so I’m now close to starting my next life.

“I fly back from Australia on Sunday, land on Monday, and my first shift is Wednesday in hospital as a doctor.

“I’m a week away from the next career, which I’m going to do 80 per cent of the time.

“My two-year training programme will take me two years and five months, which still allows me to keep a hand in with rugby, broadcasting and my work on the WRU board, among raising three young kids.

“So it’s all happening. Life is busy, but life is great.”

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