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Irish Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Gordon D'Arcy: Far from a letdown, Lions' defeat in third Test added texture to a compelling story
The focus was to win the Test series. Hopes of a 3-0 margin were pushed by Henry Pollock and others jumped on that bandwagon in solidarity with the young Northampton Saints flanker. I've been in enough of those rooms where goals are put up on the whiteboard – win a Six Nations , a Champions Cup , or a Lions series – to know how it really works. There's usually very little in the way of detail in those early meetings. The 'how' always comes later. The first step is about alignment. Then it's down to execution. History has consistently shown how difficult it is to win a series, never mind whitewashing a host nation. The first box was ticked the moment Andrea Piardi blew the final whistle in Melbourne . Series won. Job done. Cue the emotional release. Players slumped to their knees. Hugs. Roars. Tears. You could see the air being let out of a group that had poured everything into the first two Tests. In that context, the Wallabies sensed a shift may have taken place. The Lions had achieved their goal, but there was still one Test to go – an opportunity for the hosts to restore some pride. READ MORE Momentum had flipped. Australia, at home, carrying a chip on their shoulder, had been peppering all week in the lead-up to Sydney. The pre-match noise around rucks, refereeing and the grey area of officiating wasn't just media filler. It turned out to be fuel. Come the first whistle last Saturday, the Wallabies had shed their disappointment and found something much more dangerous – belief. When it's mixed with anger and opportunity, belief is a powerful elixir. How will the 2025 Lions be remembered? Listen | 40:08 I had wondered whether the release of pressure on both teams might open the door for something a little looser. A bit of an exhibition feel, where systems might give way to instinct and ambition. The good old-fashioned 'give it a crack' rugby. The Melbourne match had saved the tour. The third Test had the potential to show off what makes Lions rugby so special when it clicks. But the Sydney weather put paid to that notion. Australia were more than happy to roll up their sleeves and get down and dirty. Australia's Will Skelton has words with James Ryan of the British and Irish Lions during last Saturday's third Test. Photograph:Torrential rain turned the surface into a bog. A lightning strike threatened to end the match completely, before a long delay allowed it to restart. Australia stuck with what had worked for them a week earlier; a narrow game plan built on power and territory. This time, though, everything aligned in their favour. The weather suited their structure. Their selection calls paid off. They kept the scoreboard ticking over. [ 'We'll be having a reunion here in 12 years' time': Tadhg Beirne marks bittersweet end to 'incredible journey' Down Under Opens in new window ] Will Skelton led the charge again, throwing his considerable weight behind everything in a green and gold jumper. Taniela Tupou was right beside him. Nic White, so often a bellwether for the Wallabies, marshalled play perfectly for the conditions. The opening try was the clearest expression yet of what Joe Schmidt had been trying to achieve all series: suck the defence into the ruck area, then go wide when space appeared. The Lions were compact around the fringes, but suddenly Joseph Suaalii was in space, one-on-one. It was a proper battle, one that asked real questions of both sides The subtle in-and-away move to engage Tommy Freeman followed by the slick, seemingly effortless release to Dylan Pietsch, illustrated Suaalii's talent. Three touches of the ball is not enough for a player that can hurt opposition defences. I can't remember a Test where Brian O'Driscoll would accept that little input. When the game isn't coming to them the best players go and find it. The Lions were second best in most areas for the duration of the match. You could point to a few individual performances that didn't quite click, but the difference was collective. Mentally, they were just off. And when you're even slightly off in a Test match, those margins punish you. Skelton, again, was a tone-setter. Ripping off James Ryan's scrum cap, sparking a scuffle here and there; he was the emotional lightning rod for his teammates. And while the niggle was there to be seen, it was in the smaller, subtler moments that Australia had the edge. The bounce of a loose ball, the extra yard of speed to a turnover, the cleaner support line. Those are often good barometers of where a team is at mentally. The Wallabies were sharp. The Lions, less so. Australia's Nic White and Len Ikitau celebrate against the Lions during the third Test. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho That's the double-edged sword of a Lions tour. When the chemistry fizzes, when talented individuals click, the product can be something rare and memorable, such as sweeping tries and gritty comebacks. Moments that live forever. But when the cohesion isn't quite there, it can look a little less special. In the first Test the tricks and flicks looked effortless. In Melbourne, the mental resilience was world-class. In Sydney, the same structures were there, but the edge wasn't. And at this level, if you don't show up 100 per cent mentally, the result becomes a coin toss. This time it didn't fall their way. Would the Lions have loved a 3-0? Absolutely. However, the only team to whitewash a series in the professional era was the 2005 All Blacks team which, by most people's reckoning, was one of the best New Zealand teams of all time. Few if any teams could have lived with the individual and collective quality of that All Blacks side. They expected to win every match. It was less on the emotional side and more on the pragmatic side, so when the All Blacks sealed the series in the second Test there was no let-up in the final match. [ Owen Doyle: Dan Sheehan should have got a red card and a longer ban for dangerous strike Opens in new window ] It would have taken something extremely special for this Lions squad to win the series 3-0. Does it take away from the series win? Not in the slightest. In fact, if anything, it adds a layer of texture to the story. The series was won, yes, but this wasn't some glorified exhibition tour. It was a proper battle, one that asked real questions of both sides. For Australia, only time will tell if this was the spark they desperately needed, not just to avoid a whitewash, but to re-establish pride in front of their home fans. The third Test victory doesn't undo the damage of the first two Tests, but it gives Joe Schmidt and his players a chance to embrace the Rugby Championship in a positive manner. How they kick on or otherwise against New Zealand and South Africa will give a truer indication as to the health of rugby in Australia. The Lions? Series won. Four years to plan for a trip across the Tasman Sea to the home of the All Blacks.
RTÉ News
03-08-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
'Subconsciously, I guess I will never know' - Andy Farrell and Joe Schmidt not burdened by series hindsight
In the end, the Test series mismatch turned out to be anything but. Australia's 22-12 win against the British and Irish Lions on Saturday saved their blushes as far as a series whitewash was concerned, and appropriately left the aggregate score over three Tests at 68-67 in the Lions favour. Obviously, that combined scoreline is more of a quirky fact than a deep analysis of the tour, but this series was plainly more competitive than most people expected. When the Lions were 24-5 in front in the early stages of the second half in Brisbane, it felt like the series was already over. Looking back, the Wallabies might have been a minute away from winning it themselves. The Australian teams that pitched up in Melbourne and Sydney were far removed from the squad that looked feeble and unorganised at Suncorp Stadium. Of course, they were without Will Skelton that evening in Brisbane, and the La Rochelle second row was at his absolute best in the second and third Tests, bringing his obvious physicality to the game, but also turning it into a street fight, constantly testing the boundaries of the referees Andrea Piardi and Nika Amashukeli. Skelton was the panto villain. Every time he was near the ball, the game was at a simmer. Grappling with players off the ball, the cheap shots were late enough to get under the skin of the opposition, but not dirty enough to warrant anything more than a talking to. More of this, please. If only we could scratch that first Test from the records, and go back to Brisbane next Saturday for a proper decider. With just one international behind them against Fiji, and their frontline players held back from playing against the Lions in their warm-up games, the Wallabies looked under cooked for the opening game of the series. On Saturday night, Joe Schmidt was asked if his side could have been more battle hardened for the first Test at Suncorp Stadium. "Maybe, but I'm not really going to look back at maybes," the Wallabies boss said. "Yeah, I guess it just is what it is. I'm not great at looking back and having regrets, I'm just trying to plan a way forward." To continue the theme of ifs, buts and maybes, Saturday's game in Sydney being a dead rubber does have to be taken into account. The Lions squad looked leggy in their final game of a gruelling tour, and the celebrations of clinching the series last week with a game to spare must have played a factor in how they prepared for the week. "Subconsciously, I guess I will never know the answer to that question," Farrell (below) said when asked if his side would have been more dialled in for the game, had it been a series decider. "I hope not. I hope not. Otherwise we are not being true to ourselves in everything we talked about this week. I certainly hope not. "Everything is in hindsight isn't it. We built the week up pretty good, I thought. "There are a few days off there. Training application on Tuesday and Wednesday was pretty good, as was yesterday. It's just the story of the game that got away from us in the end. "I wouldn't have thought it was just one game too many. Who am I to know? These lads have been playing for how many months. They were certainly up for the game but the best team won." The theory that the Wallabies wanted Saturday's game more can be backed up by the contrasting reactions to the lightning delay, which saw play halted for 38 minutes in the early stages of the second half. TV viewers could get a decent insight into how the two groups were treating it. In the Lions changing room, players were told to relax, with cameras showing Finn Russell browsing on his phone, and Tadhg Furlong and Bundee Aki taking a break on bean-bags (below). "At one stage it looked like it was going be 45 minutes then it was pulled back to 30 minutes. There were updates constantly coming in but the lads stayed relaxed enough, had five minutes of a warm-up and got the show back on the road. "What came off the back of that is Australia hit the ground running and thoroughly deserved their win," Farrell added. The Lions head coach insisted it was "utter rubbish" that the relaxed approach left his players complacent and unprepared for the game restarting. Schmidt, however, had his weather delay strategy ready before the game. "We had been warned that there might be a bit of lightning, so we had a plan and with that plan we made sure that guys kept moving," Schmidt explained. "We had different guys rotating on and off the bikes, we'd a couple of bikes. We'd four balls in the changing room so guys could throw them around, so that guys could stay connected. "The rest of the time, it was just trying to get us organised for the restart." For a series that was decided with a game to spare, the last week has felt like one in which a fire has been lit under rugby union in Australia, and any idle talk of their place on the Lions rotation being in jeopardy now seems unthinkable after they brought more than 220,000 people through the gates across three Tests. And with a World Cup on the horizon in two years, the Wallabies boss is hopeful his team have started to reconnect with the Australian public. "The crowds have been absolutely awesome," Schmidt continued. "We knew that wasn't all for us, but we just started to see more and more yellow as the tour went on, and even this morning, a lot of the players were meeting up with friends and family and you just saw a lot of gold, gold scarves, gold jerseys and people who were supporting us. "It does, I believe, give the players a little bit of a lift. It makes them a little bit accountable as well. They feel like we're getting the support, we've got to make sure we keep earning it."
Yahoo
01-08-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
World Rugby hits back at Joe Schmidt over criticism of controversial decision in second Lions Test
World Rugby have leapt to the defence of referee Andrea Piardi and his officiating team and said that some of Australia head coach Joe Schmidt's criticism in the wake of the second Test was 'disappointing'. Wallabies boss Schmidt accused the officials of not fully considering player welfare when deciding not to penalise Jac Morgan for a clearout on Carlo Tizzano in the move that led to Hugo Keenan's series-securing score at the MCG. The incident has provoked significant debate online subsequently with the rugby world split on a moment that again illustrated the shades of grey within the game's lawbook, particularly around the ruck area. World Rugby have confirmed that Piardi and the officials have been reviewing the game both amongst themselves and in combination with coaches from both teams, as is standard after any international clash. They will not, however, be releasing the outcome of any of those discussions publicly as they bid to protect their referees and avoid a repeat of the abuse suffered by Nic Berry after the first Test in South Africa. Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus was given a ban and apologised to Berry after a video was leaked in which he criticised the decision-making of the referee, which the Australian official said had threatened his reputation. Wayne Barnes, meanwhile, faced death threats after taking charge of the 2023 Rugby World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand, which the Springboks won 12-11. Schmidt will not face a sanction for his comments but Alan Gilpin, the chief executive of World Rugby, felt they were misplaced and that the game must continue to support officials. 'I think it is disappointing when the reaction is one of, 'this means player welfare isn't taken seriously', because we have worked really hard on that narrative,' Gilpin said. 'Everyone knows we are putting player welfare, in its broadest sense, at the top of the agenda. You can see that from what we are doing with the instrumented mouthguards, all the research, the science, the investigations. 'You'll all recall, three years ago in the last Lions series in South Africa, when the match official in the first test was very heavily criticised, the mental health challenges. [Former referee] Wayne Barnes has talked about it – we've got match officials who, when they're criticised publicly, having their families targeted outside the school gates, that's not good, that's not fair, and that's not right, so we've got to support these guys. 'We won't talk publicly about that decision. The decision's happened, the game's finished, we'll move on, we'll share, and we do share, with Joe and the coaching team why the match official's made that decision. Joe's got a view about what was wrong with that decision making, and there'll be a debate between them about that, so that Joe and his players can go into the next Test, understanding how that game's going to be officiated.' Gilpin has talked to Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh, who had also questioned the decision, with the pair both present in Sydney at the launch of ticketing packages for the 2027 Rugby World Cup which will be held Down Under. The Morgan and Tizzano incident has led to discussions about how the sport may be simplified, with the high intensity, complex contacts around the ruck area an area of concern. 'We are reviewing the way the game is officiated and played all the time,' Gilpin explained. 'You know, we do an annual shape of the game conference that includes players, coaches, high-performance experts, match officials, fan input, broadcaster input, so all of that is a concern, but if we oversimplify rugby, it wouldn't be rugby, right? 'The breakdown is one of the toughest areas. We know that. We'll continue to work really hard with the match officials group to get consistency in the way that those key areas are officiated, and that provides, hopefully, the clarity to players and coaches. But like in any high-level sport, coaches are always looking for the edge with their teams, and we respect that.' Georgian referee Nika Amashukeli, who was an assistant to Piardi in Melbourne, will be in charge of the third Test in Sydney this weekend.
Yahoo
01-08-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
World Rugby hits back at Joe Schmidt over criticism of controversial decision in second Lions Test
World Rugby have leapt to the defence of referee Andrea Piardi and his officiating team and said that some of Australia head coach Joe Schmidt's criticism in the wake of the second Test was 'disappointing'. Wallabies boss Schmidt accused the officials of not fully considering player welfare when deciding not to penalise Jac Morgan for a clearout on Carlo Tizzano in the move that led to Hugo Keenan's series-securing score at the MCG. The incident has provoked significant debate online subsequently with the rugby world split on a moment that again illustrated the shades of grey within the game's lawbook, particularly around the ruck area. World Rugby have confirmed that Piardi and the officials have been reviewing the game both amongst themselves and in combination with coaches from both teams, as is standard after any international clash. They will not, however, be releasing the outcome of any of those discussions publicly as they bid to protect their referees and avoid a repeat of the abuse suffered by Nic Berry after the first Test in South Africa. Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus was given a ban and apologised to Berry after a video was leaked in which he criticised the decision-making of the referee, which the Australian official said had threatened his reputation. Wayne Barnes, meanwhile, faced death threats after taking charge of the 2023 Rugby World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand, which the Springboks won 12-11. Schmidt will not face a sanction for his comments but Alan Gilpin, the chief executive of World Rugby, felt they were misplaced and that the game must continue to support officials. 'I think it is disappointing when the reaction is one of, 'this means player welfare isn't taken seriously', because we have worked really hard on that narrative,' Gilpin said. 'Everyone knows we are putting player welfare, in its broadest sense, at the top of the agenda. You can see that from what we are doing with the instrumented mouthguards, all the research, the science, the investigations. 'You'll all recall, three years ago in the last Lions series in South Africa, when the match official in the first test was very heavily criticised, the mental health challenges. [Former referee] Wayne Barnes has talked about it – we've got match officials who, when they're criticised publicly, having their families targeted outside the school gates, that's not good, that's not fair, and that's not right, so we've got to support these guys. 'We won't talk publicly about that decision. The decision's happened, the game's finished, we'll move on, we'll share, and we do share, with Joe and the coaching team why the match official's made that decision. Joe's got a view about what was wrong with that decision making, and there'll be a debate between them about that, so that Joe and his players can go into the next Test, understanding how that game's going to be officiated.' Gilpin has talked to Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh, who had also questioned the decision, with the pair both present in Sydney at the launch of ticketing packages for the 2027 Rugby World Cup which will be held Down Under. The Morgan and Tizzano incident has led to discussions about how the sport may be simplified, with the high intensity, complex contacts around the ruck area an area of concern. 'We are reviewing the way the game is officiated and played all the time,' Gilpin explained. 'You know, we do an annual shape of the game conference that includes players, coaches, high-performance experts, match officials, fan input, broadcaster input, so all of that is a concern, but if we oversimplify rugby, it wouldn't be rugby, right? 'The breakdown is one of the toughest areas. We know that. We'll continue to work really hard with the match officials group to get consistency in the way that those key areas are officiated, and that provides, hopefully, the clarity to players and coaches. But like in any high-level sport, coaches are always looking for the edge with their teams, and we respect that.' Georgian referee Nika Amashukeli, who was an assistant to Piardi in Melbourne, will be in charge of the third Test in Sydney this weekend.
RTÉ News
31-07-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Joe Schmidt says abused Carlo Tizzano's ruck recoil was involuntary
Australia coach Joe Schmidt said Carlo Tizzano's reaction to the contentious clear-out by British and Irish Lions forward Jac Morgan in last week's second Test was not voluntary but the result of the amount of force he was subjected to. Morgan's clear-out came at a ruck just before the Lions scored a match-winning try last week in Melbourne and the Welshman's action was cleared by referee Andrea Piardi after reference to the Television Match Official (TMO). Tizzano was pilloried online for recoiling away from the ruck with his hands to his head after the contact, with some former players likening his reaction to a soccer player diving for a penalty. Schmidt, though, said it was simply a matter of physics. "He's had a really tough week, Carlo, he's copped a lot of online abuse," the former Ireland head coach told reporters. "There were just over 54Gs of direct force that went through the neck, along with almost 2200 (radians) of rotational force, which is enough to cause serious injury. "I think we're all aware of Newton's third law, that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction when that force hits him and the speed of his head collapsing down. "He recoiled out the back of the ruck. And I don't think he wanted to recoil like that, but that's the nature of force, that there's an equal and opposite reaction." Schmidt left Tizzano out of his team for Saturday's third Test after he turned up sore at training on Tuesday, although he said the 25-year-old had returned to his normal "irrepressible" self by Thursday. The New Zealander made it clear after last week's match that he felt the clear-out was illegal and said it made a mockery of World Rugby's campaign for player safety. That did not go down well with World Rugby chief Alan Gilpin but on Thursday Schmidt said he wanted to put it in the past and look forward to Saturday's dead-rubber third Test in Sydney. "We've got a Test in 48 hours, and you can lament all sorts of things," he said. "I actually feel like Andrea Piardi had a good game, there's a couple of decisions we might not agree with, but I thought he refereed well. "So we're not looking at refereeing decisions, we're looking at what we could have done better, making sure that we try to repair those things."
