MELBOURNE — The British & Irish Lions have triumphantly ticked off their first goal of going 1-0 up in the Test series in Australia, and are now getting ready for match two at the historic MCG this Saturday.
The opening win in Brisbane could easily have been by a wider margin than the ultimate 27-19 scoreline, so there is plenty to work on, but set against the background of a satisfying realisation that a range of individual players and collective elements of the Lions’ game were bang on the mark.
Here in Australia in 2001, the Lions won the first Test at The Gabba in Brisbane, only to lose the second and third Tests in an epic series.
And the same thing happened when the series was lost after a winning start on their most recent tour to South Africa in 2021.
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Given also how the Lions’ other full-scale tours in Australia in 1989 and 2013 were 2-1 series wins, the juicy thought of launching the Wallabies over the boundary at the MCG, and wrapping the thing up with a match to spare, must be tempered by the knowledge it has never been that easy – even if the suspicion is these Wallabies have never been so weak.
In the hosts’ favour, star forwards Rob Valetini and Will Skelton have been declared fit to play after missing the first Test, and head coach Joe Schmidt can hang on to the Wallabies winning the last 38 minutes of the Brisbane game by 14-3 as a gee-up for the second meeting.
Meanwhile, Schmidt should stop banging on about matches with South Africa coming the Wallabies’ way after this series, and concentrate on the only job in hand that thousands of travelling Lions fans are concerned about.
Be alert to a faster Australian start
Australia may not take as long to get into their stride as they did in Brisbane, when they were a little too cute with trick plays in the first half, and did themselves down with dropped passes and poor handling – all under immense pressure and line speed from Tom Curry and co in the power-packed Lions line-up, of course.
Tom Lynagh did his best at fly-half for the home side, but Ben Donaldson or James O’Connor might come in to give the Lions a more experienced opposite number to their own maestro, Finn Russell.
The Aussies went more direct in the second half, and by the end they had seven visits to the 22 to the Lions’ eight, while substitute scrum-half Tate McDermott earned a possible promotion this week with a sharp try and five carries, as he got his team-mates in motion, including an injection of pace for Carlo Tizzano’s second-half try.
This is all stuff for Lions defence coach Simon Easterby to attend to during the week.
Reach the same emotional pitch
Tom Curry justified his selection with a huge performance (Photo: Getty)Lions head coach Andy Farrell rightly praised Curry and Tadhg Beirne as “big-match” players and while there had been plenty of conjecture over tight calls for selection, no one was seriously doubting their quality – just whether what we had seen on the pitch in the mostly half-baked warm-up matches was cause for concern.
It is worth remembering the Lions players involved with Leinster had lost at home to Northampton Saints in the Champions Cup semi-finals this season, while Ireland were well beaten at home to France in the Six Nations, so not all the pre-tour omens were wonderful.
Thankfully, Curry’s workrate and link play in the wide channels, and Beirne’s all-court skills – plus other good signs like the clever pull-back passes by Tadhg Furlong – were in good order, and the task now is to hit that same peak of readiness second time around.
Beirne is fondly remembered by Farrell for crucial turnovers when Ireland won a series in New Zealand in 2022, and the lock-flanker timed a top display right when Munster won away to La Rochelle in April.
He made 23 tackles in Brisbane and may need a similar return this week.
Curry for his part proved his international mettle with England away to South Africa in 2018 and was huge in the “Cunderhill” combination with Sam Underhill in the World Cup semi-final win over New Zealand in 2019.
If there was doubt over his world-class status – of which more in a moment – it was mainly due to the injury toll he has taken in the past two years, missing almost all of the season straight after the 2023 World Cup, and being substituted during the first half four times in his 23 starts for Sale Sharks and England this season.
The PERFECT start to the second half from the Lions pic.twitter.com/gvrZ5BpjBF
— Sky Sports Rugby Union (@SkySportsRugby) July 19, 2025The Lions’ first-Test bench of Alex Mitchell, Marcus Smith, Bundee Aki, Ronan Kelleher, Andrew Porter, Will Stuart, Ollie Chessum and Ben Earl were all thrown in during a 20-minute period in Brisbane, and the surprising effect was more of a fading of impetus rather than a fresh rush.
One theory is they knew the win was assured and were honing their defence.
One of those who came off, second row Joe McCarthy, had plantar-fascia trouble in the foot, and Scotland’s Gregor Brown was on Sunday called in to assist the shadow team who will play Tuesday’s Melbourne match with a First Nations & Pasifika XV.
If McCarthy is out for the second Test, the Lions could start with Chessum and put Ireland’s James Ryan or Scotland’s Scott Cummings on the bench, or make another permutation out of those three.
More might be clear when the Tuesday team is named on Monday, for which Owen Farrell or Jamie George are possible captains.
George, the mighty hooker summoned here from England’s tour to Argentina last week, may even have a shot at the Test bench, while Jac Morgan, Josh van der Flier or Henry Pollock will all fancy bringing their differing types of energy.
Blair Kinghorn and Garry Ringrose are others set to put their hands up for selection, even if it feels right for Farrell senior to say “same again” to his winning starting team.
Punish Australia from close-range line-outs
We are so accustomed to teams scoring easy tries from these situations but the Lions have been iffy at it, all the way from the Argentina match before the tour.
They threw one to Maro Itoje at the front for a short-side shift after 34 minutes on Saturday, but it needed an eventual penalty and then a change of tack to a tapped penalty before Curry forced over for a 17-5 lead.
They may be able to win anyway, without a convincing catch-and-drive, but it might help.
Kicking accurately for James Lowe and others to chase was a good weapon for the Lions in Brisbane, and scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park said they would have targeted the Aussies with it, whether Lynagh was at fly-half or not.
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As former Wallaby centre Morgan Turinui put it on Stan Sport here: “You’ve owned the air [apart from the Max Jorgensen try for Australia], you’ve owned the ground, you’ve owned the contacts.”
The Lions did concede 11 penalties to Australia’s seven, including two for hingeing on Ellis Genge’s side of the scrum.
The scrum penalties offered the Wallabies entries into the Lions’ 22 when they were struggling to find any other way in, so scrum coach John Fogarty will scrutinise that area.
Elsewhere the stats for line-breaks and defenders beaten were pleasingly in the Lions’ favour, but still with room for improvement, as a little more relaxation on the ball, to trust the skills and pace of the likes of centre Huw Jones, should pay even greater dividends in Melbourne.
‘World-class’ within reach for the Lions? Or a phrase not worth using?
Curry post-match in Brisbane spoke a little curtly to the press, without explaining why, but it may have been he felt his place had been subject to unreasonable speculation.
In one question it was mentioned the Wallabies had been referring to the Lions before the match as “world-class” – so how close did Curry think the Lions’ first Test performance was to that description?
“I don’t know what ‘world-class’ is, it’s such a cliched thing,” he replied. “The thing is to win – you’ve got to win. I don’t really care what label you put on it, you just have to win.”
Now, this is a good debating point… who knows what “world-class” is and how to measure it?
On the other hand, Gibson-Park was outside on the pitch being interviewed for TV at the same time, and saying this about fly-half Russell: “Yeah, look, he’s world-class, isn’t he? He makes my job easy, and everyone either side of him. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with him, and hopefully another couple of weeks to get better.”
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