Whingeing Poms: Lions accuse Waratahs of watering pitch

Yahoo

06-07-2025

British and Irish Lions coach Andy Farrell has accused the NSW Waratahs of over-watering Allianz Stadium in a sensational postscript to the tourists' sloppy 21-10 escape over the huge underdogs.
Farrell was not impressed after watching his Lions fumble and bumble their way to a most unconvincing three-tries-to-two victory over a Waratahs outfit missing several key Wallabies including skipper Jake Gordon and star strike weapons Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and Max Jorgensen.
While he was critical of the side's lack of accuracy and inability to stick to the game plan, Farrell must have known he was creating bigger headlines for suggesting the hosts had doctored the pitch to catch the Lions out and make things messy as a leveller.
Despite enjoying 62 per cent of possession and 70 per cent of territory, the panicky Lions came undone with endless handling errors.
Farrell made the claim after running into former Lion-turned-Waratahs attack coach Mike Catt after the match.
"The pitch was very wet and I was asking Mike Catt after the game and he was laughing," the Englishman said.
"But, I mean, that's good tactics from them, isn't it? The ball's slippery, the breakdown's ferocious enough and the line speed is high-octane stuff as well from them.
"And we kept on trying to overplay at times. Certainly around halfway and putting ourselves back under pressure and keeping them in the game."
Asked if he really meant what he was alleging, Farrell said: "Catty just laughed and we've seen that done plenty of times. I don't know whether the pitch needed watering."
Waratahs captain Hugh Sinclair and coach Dan McKellar both made light of Farrell's moaning.
Sinclair reminded the Lions boss that Sydney was hit with near cyclonic winds and storm during the week.
"See the weather on Tuesday? It was like a f...ing cyclone," Sinclair said, as McKellar also dismissed the accusation.
"No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, no, Andy was probably sunning himself in Brisbane on Tuesday, but it wasn't pleasant in Sydney, that's for sure," McKellar said.
Probed further by a British journalist if he had watered the pitch, in more of an Ashes-like allegation, McKellar said: "I've got too much to think about to be worried about watering the pitch".
After putting more than 50 points on both the Western Force and Queensland Reds in the past week, the Lions' lacklustre display on Saturday night did not impress Farrell one bit ahead of the first Test against the Wallabies in Brisbane on July 19.
"There's a bit of frustration there," Farrell said.
"Listen, it's nice to get a win but at this stage we're trying to judge the performance and we are a little bit more so disappointed with the amount of possession and territory that we had and how we dealt with certain situations.
"It's (not) adjusting to what's been put in in front of us on the run and making sure that we're playing the game that's happening at that moment in time.
"So let's congratulate the Waratahs as well for the type of game that they had, that they played etc, but when you have 70 per cent territory and 20 turnovers, that's by far not clinical enough."