In the history of Super Rugby, since the Brumbies entered the fry in its formative years in 1996, we have only played the Lions and Bulls in successive matches on five occasions, completing the double three times.
Unusually however, this will only be the second time we have faced both foes in their native country with the fixtures normally falling with one in Canberra and the other in South Africa.
Indeed, this tour will be the first to see the games played in this order with the Lions up first, followed by the Bulls.
Back in 1998 the Golden Cats, as the Lions were known in their previous form, travelled to Canberra on Saturday 21 March and were duly beaten by 37-3 with the hosts running in four tries through Marco Caputo, Mitch Hardy, Sam Cordingly and Stephen Larkham with David Knox adding seventeen points from the tee.
A lone penalty from MJ Smith was the Cats reward.
A week later, we travelled to Brakpan, is a gold and uranium mining town in the Gauteng province of South Africa where the Bulls, known at that time as Northern Transvaal, were in their element crossing for four scores, Marius Goosen with two, to run out 24-7 victors.
Patricio Noriega claimed the sole Brumbies try of the contest.
Two years later it was a visit to Pretoria first up for the Brumbies and the boys did exceptionally well to come away with a 28-19 success in their fourth match of the season.
Mark Bartholomeusz led the way, the winger scoring a brace of tires, with scrumhalf George Gregan adding a third.
Jannie De Beer landed fourteen points for the Bulls.
The Brumbies returned to Canberra for an April Fool’s Day encounter with the Cats and they certainly made their opponents look the part as the home side ran in nine tries in a 64-0 massacre with flanker Owen Finegan helping himself to a hat-trick and Stirling Mortlock racking up eighteen points with the boot.
A year later and it was a much closer affair in Johannesburg as the Brumbies squeezed home 19-17.
Ellis Park was rocking for this encounter and it took a Joe Roff try and, ultimately, a Rare Rod Kafer drop-goal to edge the Brumbies to the points.
Seven days later in Canberra it was just as stressful for Brumbies supporters who saw their team defeat the Bulls 39-30 in a thriller at Bruce Stadium.
Andrew Walker bagged a double for the home side who outscored their opponents by five tries to four.
It would be over a decade until the fixture list threw up the Lions and Bulls in successive matches again with the 2012 version being the time when both matches were staged in South Africa.
Pretoria was the venue for the opener and the Brumbies were defeated 34-36 in a rollicking match.
The visiting side outscored the Bulls by an amazing five tries to two, but the metronomic boot of Morne Steyn was the difference, he landed a conversion, seven penalties and a drop-goal for a personal tally of 26 points.
There would be better news a week later in Johannesburg however, as seven tries saw the Brumbies roar to a 34-20 success over the Lions, the first time we had played the South African franchise under that name on the African continent.
Moving finally to 2015 and a double success which saw the Lions beaten 30-20 in Johannesburg on 16 May before the Bulls went the same way on the 29 May, defeated 22-16 in Canberra with the Brumbies having the bye week in between encounters.
