The Tom Richards Trophy is an international rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 trophy awarded to the winner of British and Irish Lions

British and Irish Lions

The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...

 vs. Australia test

Test match (rugby union)

Test match in rugby union is a match recognised as being a full international match by at least one of the participating teams' governing bodies. It is an unofficial but widely used term in the sport....

 series. It was commissioned for the 2001 British Lions tour to Australia

2001 British Lions tour to Australia

The 2001 British and Irish Lions tour to Australia was a series of matches played by the British Lions rugby union team in Australia.This tour followed the Lions' 1997 tour to South Africa and preceded the 2005 tour to New Zealand....

 and the inaugural winner was Australia, who won the series 2-1. This was the first time that Australia had managed to defeat the Lions in a series. The two teams' first meeting was in Australia in 1899 where they played a four test series, won by the Lions 3-1.

Tom Richards was the only player to have played for both the Wallabies and Lions. He took part in the Gallipoli campaign

Battle of Gallipoli

The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...

 and for his efforts in France

Western Front (World War I)

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

 was awarded the Military Cross

Military Cross

The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....

. In 1908 Richards played in the first Wallaby team to tour Britain and won the gold medal at the 1908 Olympic Games

1908 Summer Olympics

The 1908 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the IV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in 1908 in London, England, United Kingdom. These games were originally scheduled to be held in Rome. At the time they were the fifth modern Olympic games...

. In 1910 he represented the Lions as a replacement on the their tour to South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 whilst living in the country. In 1912 he was selected for the Wallaby tour to the US

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.