Everybody who believes the series is best served by the Wallabies delivering a bloody nose to the Lions and taking it to a third game will have a quiet support for Schmidt’s team.
It’s more an exercise in wishful thinking than anything else. The optimists from an Australian perspective will look to the final 30 minutes in Brisbane for hope. So let’s look at those 30 minutes and ask if the Lions are as likely to be as wasteful and ill-disciplined for a second week in a row.
A sloppy Jamison Gibson-Park pass to Finn Russell and a knock-on. Freakish inaccuracy from two majestic operators. A Russell kick charged down, Furlong conceding a penalty, Andrew Porter conceding a penalty, Curry conceding a penalty, an offside penalty, then another, then a forced pass from Jack Conan to Bundee Aki and a spillage, then another Australia penalty.
That was all in 15 minutes or so when the Lions were 24-5 ahead. And it continued. Tommy Freeman forces a pass and knocks on, Maro Itoje knocks on, Hugo Keenan misses a tackle on Harry Potter.
After all of that, the Lions still had a 15-point advantage, only reduced to eight a couple of minutes from time. The difference between the Lions from minute one to minute 49 and the Lions from minute 50 to minute 80 was stark.
If they play for 60 or 70 minutes on Saturday the way they played for 50 in Brisbane they’ll win by a street because the Wallabies are undercooked and not particularly good – despite many of us wishing they were good enough to make a proper series of it.
And the Lions at their best were very, very good. They were on a different plain, physically and creatively, than the Wallabies. When Dan Sheehan finished off their third try – a thing of real beauty – the temptation was to reach for the record books because it really did feel like an epic shellacking was on its way.
Maybe tiredness derailed the Lions. Maybe subconsciously they switched off – an idea floated by Farrell, then shot down by Itoje. The Wallabies grew into it only when the game was already over. The chances of a repeat of such a high error count? Limited.
The show has now moved on to Melbourne, where the Lions will play arguably their most meaningless game since 1950, when they went to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to play a side consisting of local businessmen, some armed forces and a cricketer.
On Tuesday, the Lions will face First Nations and Pasifika. They’ve called up a 45th player – Scotland’s Gregor Brown. He’ll join Ewan Ashman, Rory Sutherland, Darcy Graham, Jamie Osborne and Tom Clarkson as the ‘Geography Six’ of 2025.
All are expected to play a part while the Test squad rest, and while the Wallabies’ desperation grows ever higher.
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