Australia v British & Irish Lions
Venue: The MCG, Melbourne
Kick-off: 8pm local time/11am Irish
On TV: Live on Sky Sports
Rugby, like most sport, doesn’t always do logic. And if a week is a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson once said, then it can certainly be true in rugby, not least when the same teams meet again seven days later. This is all the truer in the context of a Lions Test series.
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The sense of a major sporting occasion has been more acute in Melbourne than in Brisbane, as the 40,000 strong Red Army, comprising supporters who have travelled from Ireland and the UK and the thousands of expats based in Australia, began to descend upon the city.
Honestly, there’s so many Irish about it almost feels like being at home. This accentuated the normal buzz of a Friday night on the riverfront or in central Melbourne and the bars were rammed. It feels like the city has just stopped for one long partying and sporting weekend.
The vast bulk of Lions fans will have done so in confident expectation that their team will be complete a series clinching 2-0 win. Yet history has taught us that winning the First Test counts for little or nothing come kick-off a week later.
Indeed, it can often work against the winners as the losers have perhaps the most powerful motive in sport: revenge. What’s more, in a three-match series the vanquished team in the first Test are in do-or-die mode.
It happened here in this city in 2013 and again four years later in New Zealand, when the Lions recovered from losing the first Test 30-15 to win the second in Wellington 24-21 a week later. Four years ago the Springboks completed a 23-point turnaround from the first to the second Tests.
Is it do or die for Australia in the second test against the Lions?
Andy Farrell was part of the Lions coaching ticket on those tours to Australia and New Zealand and he has also overseen Irish sides recovering from losing a first Test by winning the second a week later away to the All Blacks and the Springboks. The better side one week isn’t always the superior side; as with the Lions in 2017, Ireland would have been underdogs on both occasions. It can be done and often is done.
Furthermore, every match is shaped by its opening engagements and thereafter assumes its own narrative. All the more so if, say, the Wallabies score an early try. Backed into a corner, Australian sides and their supporters love to come out fighting. They did it in 2001 and in 2013 when avenging a first Test defeat in Brisbane by winning the second in Melbourne, going on to win the series on the former occasion before losing the Sydney decider a dozen years ago.
“This game might be completely different,” Farrell said. “We might have a role reversal and we have to adapt and be honest with ourselves and stay on point if we are in front or if we are behind, things going your way, not going your way. It is just staying honest as long as we possibly can.”
The first Test was also played in sunny Brisbane, but the forecast for Saturday evening here in Melbourne, although changeable, is promising rain and plenty of it, adding to the vagaries.
“Somebody’s looking at it [weather forecast] 10 times a day at the minute,” Farrell said with a rueful smile. “We expect it to be wet, but sometimes somebody tells me a completely different story to what someone else told me five minutes before. It is what it is. We’ve got to play the game that’s in front of us. We’ll be ready for all those different types of scenarios.”
One ventures this is partly why Farrell has installed Bundee Aki from the start, while moving Ellis Genge to the bench and having the safety net of his son Owen’s vast experience to draw on in a call that looks like it will give the Lions better oomph off the bench.
But then again that is assuredly so from the off with the Wallabies, given Joe Schmidt has reinstated Will Skelton and Rob Valetini, whose combined weight is 253kg.
“We didn’t have the intention last week, and we don’t have the intention this week, of being submissive,” Schmidt said. “I just think that they played on the edge really well. They got in among us, sometimes just beside us, which made it very hard to play, and we’re hopeful that we will be able to take that to them this week and keep them on the back foot a little bit more.”
Schmidt and the Wallabies believe they could have executed plenty of moments a little better, didn’t get the lineout platforms they are capable of, didn’t generally get the rub of the green and that they were much closer to the Lions than is widely thought.
Whereas the Wallabies are fighting for their lives, the Lions are hunting for the kill, but will the likes of Tadhg Beirne and Tom Curry, for example, scale the extraordinary heights of last week? And although Ollie Chessum and James Ryan are like-for-like promotions in the absence of Joe McCarthy, will the latter be missed? After such a prolonged build-up to the first Test, can the Lions reach the same emotional pitch again?
“It shouldn’t be because that’s all here, in the head,” Farrell said. “I suppose everyone is a human being. But if you look at it from an Australian point of view, they played the same 80 minutes, the same contest.
“It cannot be the case that they’re more up for this game because they’re in the exact same scenario. The only contradiction would be that they’re emotionally more up for it, so that can’t be part of it for us.”
This second Test could well have more ebbs and flows, feel more competitive and generate a different kind of energy and atmosphere among the 90,000 fans.
But if Farrell and co have the Lions primed – and they have looked ruthlessly focused from the outset of the tour with only family visitors and treks to cafes offering much in the way of a distraction – then a week on they actually should be the better team again.
Australia: Tom Wright (Brumbies); Max Jorgensen (Force), Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii (Waratahs), Len Ikitau (Brumbies); Harry Potter (Waratahs); Tom Lynagh (Reds), Jake Gordon (Waratahs); James Slipper (Brumbies), David Porecki (Waratahs), Allan Alaalatoa (Brumbies), Nick Frost (Brumbies), Will Skelton (La Rochelle), Rob Valetini (Brumbies), Fraser McReight (Reds), Harry Wilson (Reds, Capt). Replacements: Billy Pollard (Brumbies), Angus Bell (Waratahs), Tom Robertson (Force), Jeremy Williams (Force), Langi Gleeson (Waratahs), Carlo Tizzano (Force), Tate McDermott (Reds), Ben Donaldson (Force).
British & Irish Lions: Hugo Keenan (Leinster Rugby/Ireland); Tommy Freeman (Northampton Saints/England), Huw Jones (Glasgow Warriors/Scotland), Bundee Aki (Connacht Rugby/Ireland), James Lowe (Leinster Rugby/Ireland); Finn Russell (Bath Rugby/Scotland), Jamison Gibson-Park (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Andrew Porter (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Dan Sheehan (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Tadhg Furlong (Leinster Rugby/Ireland); Maro Itoje (Saracens/England, Capt), Ollie Chessum (Leicester Tigers/England); Tadhg Beirne (Munster Rugby/Ireland), Tom Curry (Sale Sharks/England), Jack Conan (Leinster Rugby/Ireland). Replacements: Ronan Kelleher (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Ellis Genge (Bristol Bears/England), Will Stuart (Bath Rugby/England), James Ryan (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Jac Morgan (Ospreys/Wales), Alex Mitchell (Northampton Saints/England), Owen Farrell (Saracens/England), Blair Kinghorn (Toulouse/Scotland).
Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR)
Assistant referees: Nika Amashukeli (GRU), Ben O’Keeffe (NZR)
TMO: Eric Gauzins (FFR)
FPRO: Marius Jonker (SARU)
Overall head-to-head: Played 24. Australia 6 wins. Lions 18 wins
Last seven meetings: 2001: Australia 13 Lions 29; Australia 35 Lions 14; Australia 29 Lions 23. 2013: Australia 21 Lions 23; Australia 16 Lions 15; Australia 16 Lions 41. 2025: Australia 19 Lions 27.
Forecast: Lions to win.
