Tales from Tour: Vice captain Aidan Gleeson proud of representative honours

Aidan Gleeson is one of the vice captains of the touring party.

The Rochdale Mayfield prop has enjoyed a steady season despite the side’s inconsistency.

“We’ve had quite a poor season by our standards,” he said.

“For the last three years, We’ve reached play-off semi-finals and last year we needed to win our last game to stay up!

“After that our coach has stepped down and a few players have moved on. It’s going to be a challenging year.

“I’ve been vice-captain at Mayfield for a couple of seasons but with players moving on and young lads coming through, I thought I had to take that role.”

In addition to BARLA honours with Lancashire and the Lions, Gleeson also represents GB Teachers and went on a short tour to Spain earlier this year.

“I played for them about six or seven years ago when I worked for Rochdale Hornets,” Gleeson added.

“I then got involved again about two years ago and went to Spain, which was good. Representative honours are always nice.

“I’ve played for Lancashire for the last four years and captained them last year. Luckily enough I got the chance to come on another BARLA tour. I went to South Africa in 2015, doing that was really fun.”

Regarding his experience of Fiji so far, Gleeson said: “It’s a bit of a contrast to what I thought it would have been.

“But knowing what sort of country Fiji is now, there isn’t a lot of wealth, they have a very laid-back culture, there is no rushing around – that’s what the world should be more like.”