Impossible these days, the British and Irish Lions went all-in with the dirtiest tactics they could get away with at the time to bash the Wallabies in their epic 1989 series.

Also unimaginable, both teams still seem perfectly OK with the grubby actions, accepting that they were part and parcel of rugby in that era and the Lions still deserved to win.

“I have no regrets about the way they played,” the Wallabies captain Nick Farr-Jones told this masthead. “They were smart, they were intelligent.”

Prop Dan Crowley, who earned his crust as an undercover copper when he wasn’t packing down in the front row for the Wallabies, was also unfazed by what the Lions did in 1989.

“No problems at all,” Crowley said. “But I’m allegedly a dinosaur because if it was up to me, I‘d bring rucking back and get the referee out of the game more.

“In those days, there was nothing uncommon about getting into a full-on blue…I guess the only surprise was that we were expecting it to start in the forwards.”

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Thrashed four tries to nil in the opening match of the three-Test series in Sydney, the Lions knew they had to find a way to put the Wallabies off their game.

So they went down the old-fashioned path - by going the biff - and swinging punches, kicking and wrestling their Australian opposition into submission in the second Test in Brisbane.

Though frowned upon, their skulduggery worked. They bashed the Wallabies to run away with the match and level the series before riding their luck to clinch the decider.

Regarded as one of the most controversial international rugby matches ever played, the infamous Battle of Ballymore is still fondly remembered by many players on both sides, even though it would never happen today because anyone who tried the same ploy would be sent off and suspended.

“They called it the Battle of Ballymore but it was more the kind of cheap shots that was the worry,” Wallabies ‘ insider centre Lloyd Walker said.

“We were ready for that (rough play) but did we adjust well enough? Maybe, maybe not.

“The refereeing didn’t really help us that much as well but at the end of the day, they were just too good.

“Back in the day, that was acceptable and no-one was sent off but if you played that game today, there’d be multiple send-offs and sin bins. The game, the game has changed a lot. We knew it was coming but when the dust settled they were just too good.”

Among the most intelligent and respected figures in the game, none of the Australians or Lions are condoning or advocating violence in sport.

Far from it.

As a halfback, Farr-Jones was always one of the smallest players on the pitch who became a legend of the game through his sublime skills and acumen rather than his fists.

But brawls were commonplace in footy during that period, so while they look bad through the lens of time, Farr-Jones accepts that it was part of the rough and tumble game in that era.

“They had a big, big pack. You might recall there were three policemen, bobbies, there was Dean Richards, there was Paul Ackford and Wade Dooley,” Farr-Jones said.

“You had Mike Teague on the side, you had Finlay Calder, you had Dai Moore, the Welsh prop.

“But I look back on it and it was intelligent, it was smart, they did put me off my game, and the team somewhat did unfold around their captain.”

The Wallabies already had an inkling before the second Test kicked off that the Lions would come out swinging because the tourists had been labelled “soft” after losing the series opener and their tough-as-nails skipper Calder was under pressure to retain his place.

The Scotsman had offered to relinquish the captaincy but was persuaded to stay on and quickly repaid the faith shown in him by throwing the first punch of the second Test at Farr-Jones after Lions halfback Robert Jones deliberately stamped on his boot.

“I was aching to get to grips physically with Farr-Jones. An opportunity came at the first scrum,” Jones said.

“There was nothing premeditated in the sense that I had decided exactly what to do beforehand, but I had gone out with the intention of doing something to unsettle him. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to stand on his foot at the first scrum and push down. He came back at me, and within seconds there was a pretty lively punch up going on.

“The punch up set the tone for the match. Nick was very upset by the incident and kept chatting to the referee. The Australians in general were upset about our physical approach and it has to be said that things got quite brutal at times. It probably was the turning point of the match and the series. Nick Farr-Jones was distracted from his normal game and was not nearly as effective as he had been the week before.”

Although things erupted at the first scrum, Calder maintains it wasn’t intentional.

“Everyone was a bit tense and it doesn’t take much for something to kick off,” the Scotsman said. “We were always going to get stuck in but I don’t believe it was premeditated.

“The smallest man on the field starts the fight, how often has that happened?”

Farr-Jones reckons it was a calculated move from the Lions to go after him.

“That was the obvious tactic because in those days you could turn it into a melee then everyone could get involved,” Farr-Jones said.

“That was the very first scrum. There’s no doubt it was pre-planned. Jones said ‘I’ll jump on his foot, he’s going to push me off then Finlay on the side of the scrum straight into him.’

“The first melee just set the scene for the whole game. There were probably 10 melees during the game, big punch-ups that if enough people got involved then no one was going to get sent off.”

A reluctant pugilist, Farr-Jones didn’t take a backward step but copped a beating for his troubles and needed 25 internal stitches to repair all the cuts in his mouth from the blows he sustained.

He wasn’t alone. Most of his Wallabies teammates were left bruised and battered while the Lions reckoned they copped a few themselves in retaliation.

“It was the weirdest thing,” Lions fullback Gavin Hastings said.

“I scored the winning try that day but I don’t remember it because Farr-Jones had smacked me really hard.“

As a frontrower, Crowley was at the centre of it all but said the fighting wasn’t what cost the Wallabies the match.

“We were out muscled in the forward pack,” Crowley said.

“ We had decent backs, but you can’t expect them to pull a rabbit out of their hat if the forwards aren’t going forward. And that’s where the Lions really worked hard and muscled up in that forward pack and we didn’t respond as well as we could have.”

To this day, Farr-Jones says he harbours no grudges against the Lions, and is still friends with the opposition.

“I still catch up with some of those Lions guys and some of them just love talking about it,” he said.

“Basically, their tactic was to beat the shit out of us and see how they stand up and definitely a large part of the tactic too was don’t miss the little bloke with the nine on his back because he’s also got the C next to his name in the program.

“They realised if they could beat the crap out of me, put me off my game as captain they were a fair way down the track to causing an upset.”