With a delay for lightning, an all-day deluge, and a lackluster performance from the British & Irish Lions, the third and final Test of the 2025 series against Australia felt like an anticlimactic end to a victorious tour Down Under.
Despite producing their best performance of the series, the victorious Wallabies found it peculiar to stand on the Accor Stadium pitch at full-time while the Lions celebrated their 2-1 series win.
However, this unusual scene perhaps perfectly encapsulated a tour that began with predictions of a Lions whitewash against supposedly inferior opponents and doubts about Australia’s viability as a touring destination every 12 years.
A closely contested Test series, narrowly won by the Lions, served as an ideal response, as Joe Schmidt’s youthful Wallabies rebounded from a heartbreaking last-minute loss in the second Test in Melbourne. They also established themselves as a force to be reckoned with as hosts of the 2027 World Cup.
Lions head coach Andy Farrell believes that this Australian side, which will be led by incoming head coach Les Kiss by the time the World Cup arrives, has a bright future ahead.
While his own team looked like a mere shadow of their former selves from the previous week at the MCG and struggled to cope with the atrocious weather, a series of head injuries, and the 37-minute delay caused by lightning strikes within 10 kilometers of Sydney’s Olympic Park, Farrell witnessed the Wallabies rise to the occasion. Having fallen 2-0 down, they outplayed the visiting Lions in every aspect on Saturday.
“Obviously, I went on record last week expressing my belief that it was insulting for people to question the Wallabies’ and the Lions’ touring here,” Farrell stated.
“Everyone experiences highs and lows. If you look at the progress they’ve made over the past 18 months, it’s been phenomenal. This team that’s been playing over the last three weeks is a formidable force. I told Joe before the game on the pitch that I believe this team is destined for great things over the next 18 months.
“By the time the World Cup rolls around, they’ll be a significant threat. They possess some outstanding athletes and players, so we aren’t surprised by their performance over the past couple of weeks.”
The Wallabies had ample reasons to regret those initial two defeats, 27-19 in Brisbane and 29-26 in Melbourne. They were completely overwhelmed in the first 42 minutes of the first Test, as the Lions built an insurmountable 24-5 lead through relentless power rugby.
And they squandered a 23-5 advantage, built during an impressive first 30 minutes of the second Test, as their shortcomings in game management were exposed by a more experienced and clever opposition.
However, Australia never trailed in Sydney, as the Lions’ set-piece faltered. They lost Maro Itoje and Tommy Freeman to failed Head Injury Assessments, and saw James Ryan leave the field on a stretcher after a severe head injury following contact with Will Skelton’s knee. The two days of celebrations following their series-clinching MCG victory seemed to come back to haunt them.
A try from Dylan Pietsch after seven minutes and a penalty from Tom Lynagh six minutes before halftime gave them an 8-0 lead. While this might not seem like a daunting challenge for Farrell’s men, in those conditions, it felt like a mountain to climb, and they barely made it to base camp.
When the Lions carelessly overplayed on the halfway line and 20-year-old wing Max Jorgensen seized the loose ball, the subsequent conversion of his try made it 15-0, sealing their fate.
A try from Jac Morgan on 62 minutes represented the Lions’ first points of the evening, and Finn Russell’s conversion gave hope to the sizeable contingent of 80,312 fans. However, a yellow card for repeated team offences to Ronan Kelleher extinguished any chance of a comeback, and the Wallabies capitalised on the hooker’s absence with a try from Tate McDermott. A late try from fellow replacement front rower Will Stuart was a mere consolation.
The win was thoroughly deserved, restoring Wallabies pride and undoing the perceived lack of respect previously shown to them. It also re-energised an Australian sporting nation that was in danger of losing interest, two years out from a home World Cup, at least as far as Schmidt was concerned.
“Yeah, the crowds have been absolutely awesome. Suncorp was full, tonight was full, 90-plus thousand in the MCG. That’s the nature of the Lions, that wasn’t all us, that’s the sea of red and the nature of Lions tours.
“So 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, because you’re not playing until eight o’clock at night, it’s actually quite a long day, a lot of the players were meeting up with friends and family and you just saw a lot of gold, a lot of gold scarves, gold jerseys and people who were supporting us.
“I believe it does give the players a little bit of a lift and 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.
“I don’t know what the stats are or the TV numbers are or anything else but what I do know is how hard these players work and if people want to come and support a team that are prepared to work hard then this is a good team, particularly as a national team, globally it’s a big tournament coming up in two years’ time and the more support we can earn, the better we can grow and progress as a team over the next year and beyond, I just think the more support we can probably attract to the game.”
Schmidt will hand over the Wallabies’ reins to Queensland boss and his former Ireland assistant Les Kiss before the World Cup in order to devote time to family back in New Zealand and his son Luke’s ongoing battle with severe epilepsy.
When asked about his belief in fellow former Ireland defence coach Farrell’s assertion of his team’s potential for development, Schmidt replied: “I believe everything Faz tells me. Faz and I would be good friends, go back a long way, have worked together a lot and would also be quite like-minded around probably studying other teams and I’d like to think that he’s right.”
Farrell, meanwhile, will contemplate his side’s final Test no-show in Sydney during the long journey home to Dublin, where he eagerly anticipates a night out at Croke Park watching Oasis.
If he is to coach the tourists again on the 2029 tour to New Zealand, he will look forward to solving the puzzle he couldn’t crack here in Australia: how to replicate what no Lions side has managed since 1927 and win a series 3-0.
The tourists’ desire for a clean sweep, which had been a long-stated objective, eluded them at Accor Stadium. This prompted a pertinent question that the head coach struggled to answer on Saturday night: whether it was psychologically impossible for his players not to rest on their laurels, having already secured the series at 2-0, and to give it one last push for greatness.
“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,” Farrell said, before adding: “Subconsciously, I guess I will never know the answer to that question.”
