{"id":315587,"date":"2025-08-03T22:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T22:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315587\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T22:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T22:00:11","slug":"bundee-aki-reveals-extraordinary-sacrifice-he-made-to-play-in-first-lions-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315587\/","title":{"rendered":"Bundee Aki reveals extraordinary sacrifice he made to play in first Lions Test"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Bundee Aki has revealed he missed the birth of his fifth child to play in the British and Irish Lions\u2019 first Test against Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Aki completed 23 minutes as a replacement against the Wallabies at Suncorp Stadium on July 19 just hours after his wife Kayla had given birth to Aine in their native New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>And the 35-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/ireland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ireland<\/a> centre saw the delivery of a healthy baby as an omen for the Lions\u2019 resounding 27-19 victory that set them on the path to a series triumph.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to enjoy my break, my family time. I haven\u2019t seen my family for eight weeks. I have a newborn child who I haven\u2019t met yet,\u201d Aki said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCredit to my wife \u2013 she\u2019s a powerful woman, a strong woman. I have to say it to her. If you only knew the story of what happened, it\u2019s a funny story in itself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a good day. I was in the hotel. I knew we were overdue. The missus calls me and she\u2019s like, \u2018Water hasn\u2019t broke but I\u2019m going to the hospital, I\u2019m feeling contractions.\u2019 I go, \u2018Yeah, fair enough\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe goes to the hospital, we\u2019re getting ready for the team meeting pre-match and then she calls me and says she\u2019s on the way to the hospital, so I said, \u2018Fine, be safe.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFive minutes later she sends a photo, her water broke. I was like, \u2018Cool, OK, are you almost there?\u2019. This is like 30 or 40 minutes away from the hospital, so I said, \u2018You\u2019ll be all right, mum is there\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTen minutes later she video calls me and I was like, \u2018S***, what\u2019s going on?\u2019. I saw a baby on the video call, so she had it in the car on the way to the hospital. They\u2019re both strong and healthy, so happy days!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew it was good Juju, I knew it was good Juju, so I knew we were going to have a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/lions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lions<\/a> clinched the series in Melbourne the following weekend by emerging 29-26 winners in what was the first of two successive starts for Aki, who was also part of the 2021 expedition to South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnly so many people can say they\u2019ve been on two tours or have won a series,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHonestly, I can\u2019t say anything high enough of this bunch of boys, the team, the staff. It\u2019s been one of the most enjoyable tours I\u2019ve ever been on. It\u2019s so good.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Lions is every four years so coming to Australia, being the first team to go back-to-back to win the series against Australia \u2013 it\u2019s up there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bundee Aki has revealed he missed the birth of his fifth child to play in the British and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-315587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114967086588053431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}