As anybody who managed to get a pre-tour bet on Peter O'Mahony leading the Lions in the first Test staggers out of their bookies stooped under the weight of the cash, we turn our attention to previous occasions on which the Lions have been led by a stand-in captain, and find out By The Number that there have been more than you might think.
0 Welsh captains before Sam Warburton who had to stand down from leading the Lions, and Warburton now becomes the first from any country to stand down on two different tours. Injury also forced him to give way to compatriot Alun-Wyn Jones for the decider in Australia in 2013. Sam also becomes the first Lions leader to start a Test on the bench.
0 Scots have ever stood in as replacement captains, but three appointed leaders from Scotland have missed Tests. The robust double-barrelled duo of David Bedell-Sivright, who missed three matches in New Zealand and Australia in 1904 with a broken leg and Mike Campbell-Lamerton, who stood down from the second and fourth Tests in New Zealand in 1966. The third was Arthur Wilson, who had a PhD in Maths from Cambridge, who missed the final Test in South Africa 1962.
1 Irishman has previously stepped into the captaincy. The rumbustious Tom Crean was the first ever rank and file Lion to step up, replacing veteran Johnnie Hammond in the first and third Tests against the Springboks in 1896.
1 Lions tour has seen the appointed captain replaced by a club-mate. In 1910 Tom Smyth, who played for Newport, was replaced when injured for the first Test against South Africa by his fellow black and amber teammate Jack Jones.
2 Newport players have deputised as captains. Jack Jones was followed in 1966 by brilliant outside-half Dai Watkins, who had not led an international team but had plenty of experience of captaining his club when he took over from Campbell-Lamerton in New Zealand.
2 stand-in Lions leaders have ended up playing rugby league. Watkins went to Salford for a record fee early in 1968 and enjoyed a long, hugely prolific career in the 13 a side game, while 2005 stand-in Gareth Thomas's move to Crusaders came aged 36, at the back end of a 100-cap union career. Cliff Morgan, who stood in for Robin Thompson -- a rare tour captain who also ended up playing league -- in one Test in South Africa in 1955 confessed that one of his unattained ambitions was playing for Wigan.
2 Tests were lost by Bleddyn Williams as captain when he stood in for Karl Mullen, who much later admitted that he could probably have played while "injured" against New Zealand in 1950. Both cliffhangers, and both lost by three points, they were the only matches lost by Williams in eight as an international captain.
3 Tests were missed voluntarily by Lions leader Doug Prentice in New Zealand in 1930, giving way to wing Carl Aarvold in all but the second Test. Prentice was chosen as captain on the boat out by autocratic manager James 'Bim' Baxter, and later managed the Lions team which visited Argentina in 1936.
3 Munstermen will have captained the Lions in the last half-century when O'Mahony leads the Lions out, following on from Tom Kiernan and Paul O'Connell, tour captains in South Africa in 1968 and 2009 respectively.
3 Englishmen have stood in as Lions captain -- Frank Stout in place of Matthew Mullineux in three matches in Australia in 1899, Aarvold and scrum-half Dick Jeeps, who replaced Arthur Smith in South Africa 1962. Three Englishmen have stood down, all before 1930 - Hammond, Mullineux and Prentice, who between them won only three England caps.
4 glasses of champagne was the maximum daily intake recommended by 1896 stand-in Tom Crean -- at least on match days, when he felt players should show some restraint. Crean, whose 15 stone made him a giant by Victorian standards, terrified opponents with his size and ability to run 100 yards in less than 11 seconds and proved a similarly formidable adversary when returning to South Africa in a military capacity for the Boer War, becoming one of rugby's VCs.
5 Lions teams have been led by stand-in captains against South Africa. Crean's two wins by 8-0 and 9-3 in 1896 and the 9-6 victory at Pretoria in 1955 in a tight, kicking-dominated contest in which the Lions were led by the usually effervescent Cliff Morgan outweigh the matches lost under the leadership of Jack Jones in 1910 and the 34-14 defeat inflicted on a Lions team led by Jeeps in the final Test of the 1962 tour.
7 Welshmen have stood in as Lions captain, more than from the other three nations combined. Alun-Wyn Jones followed in the footsteps of Gareth Thomas, Dai Watkins, Cliff Morgan, Bleddyn Williams, Jack Jones and Teddy Morgan, the brilliant wing who deputised for Bedell-Sivright in two Tests against Australia and the first ever against New Zealand in 1904.
7-0 is the Lions record with deputy captains against Australia. Alun-Wyn's triumph in 2013 followed victories in earlier days when the Lions expected to beat the Wallabies, led by Bleddyn Williams in 1950, Teddy Morgan in two matches in 1904 and Stout in three Tests in 1899.
9 defeats have been inflicted by the All Blacks on Lions teams led by substitute leaders, against the single victory under Aarvold's leadership in the first Test in 1930. Aarvold also lost twice, following in the footsteps of Teddy Morgan (1904) and followed by Williams, Watkins and Thomas who lost two apiece in 1950, 1966 and 2005.
17 tries were scored in international rugby by 1904 stand-in Teddy Morgan, second only to Wales's other great wing of the era Willie Llewellyn. Three were scored in four matches for the 1904 Lions and the remaining 14 for Wales, of which the most famous was the only score of the 1905 victory over the pioneering All Blacks.
21 years were spent as a High Court Judge by 1930 stand-in Carl Aarvold, most famously in 1965 when he presided over the trial of the Kray Twins on an extortion charge which was dismissed when the jury was unable to agree. Sir Carl also became president of the Lawn Tennis Association and a key figure in the game's move to professionalism, 27 years before rugby, when he concluded that amateurism was no longer realistic or viable.
22 Lions teams have been led out by stand-in captains, recording a 50 percent success rate with 11 wins, which compares very favourably with the 33 percent record -- won 6, drawn 2, lost 13 -- record by those squads under the originally appointed captains.
36 was Johnny Hammond's age on the 1896 tour, which may help explain why the Lions' historians report that Tom Crean was the effective "leader on the field" even in the two Tests (one the first ever won by the Springboks) when Hammond played. But he clearly enjoyed trips to South Africa, having played all three Tests on the pioneering 1891 tour and returning as manager in 1903.
39 years, 10 complete tours and 37 Tests elapsed between Campbell-Lamerton missing the final Test in New Zealand in 1966 and Brian O'Driscoll, ruled out of the tour by a brutal challenge in the first minute of the first Test at Christchurch, giving way to Gareth Thomas for the second Test at Wellington in 2005. The monuments of fitness and resilience who came in between were Tom Kiernan, John Dawes, Willie-John McBride, Phil Bennett, Bill Beaumont, Ciaran Fitzgerald, Finlay Calder, Gavin Hastings and, on two tours, Martin Johnson.
41 Lions matches in all were played by two of the early deputies, Frank Stout and John Jones. This remained a shared record into the second half of the twentieth century.
42 matches were played for the Lions by the man who finally overtook them, Dick Jeeps. The robust all-weather England scrum-half took the record by himself in his last Lions match, also the one where he featured as stand-in Lions skipper at the end of the 1962 Lions tour. The Lions lost, but Jeeps also took his all-time Lions Tests record to 13. Both appearance records were later comprehensively obliterated by one of the younger members of his team, Irish lock Willie-John McBride, who played 17 Tests and 70 matches in all on his five tours between then and 1974.
62 inches was the height of the Rev Matthew Mullineux, who gave way to Frank Stout as captain after getting injured in the first Test of the 1899 tour of Australia. Not only did the other scrum-half, Durham's Charles Adamson, another Englishman who was never capped, play extremely well in his place but, even when fit, Mullineux had plenty to keep him busy since he had picked the team, managed it, preached regularly and refereed their final match, against Victoria -- industry which earned a poem in his honour from the famed Australian writer 'Banjo' Patterson.
87 years in which only Welshmen have deputised in Lions Tests in New Zealand will end on Saturday when Peter O'Mahony follows in the line stretching back to Carl Aarvold in 1930 and since occupied by Bleddyn Williams, Cliff Morgan, Dai Watkins and Gareth Thomas.
95 seconds was all it took for Gareth Thomas to make an impact as stand-in skipper in the second Test at Wellington at 2005 as he stormed across under the posts and celebrated with the 'Ayatollah' dance beloved of Cardiff City fans. Unfortunately that was as good as it got as the remaining 78 minutes and 25 seconds saw the All Blacks demolish the tourists 48-18.
121 years since an Irish stand-in last led the Lions in a Test. Tom Crean's team won at Port Elizabeth and Kimberley, so Peter O'Mahony has a record to keep up.