Beating Lions with this Australia side would be Joe Schmidt's greatest achievement

Telegraph

2 days ago

For a coach whose forensic attention to detail is baked into Irish rugby folklore, Joe Schmidt's unveiling of his Wallabies squad to face the Lions last week looked decidedly shambolic.
The series-ending neck injury suffered by Noah Lolesio in the 21-18 win against Fiji last Sunday meant that Schmidt needed to call up another fly-half. It appeared obvious that replacement would be the veteran James O'Connor to counterbalance the inexperienced pair of Tom Lynagh and Ben Donaldson.
Yet there was an apparent issue with obtaining insurance for the 35-year-old, which meant that Schmidt was, unsuccessfully, trying to contact O'Connor to tell him he was in on the morning the squad was being unveiled in Brisbane. It just so happened that O'Connor was in Brisbane coaching a female sevens side when he was spotted wandering past the team hotel. Crisis averted.
Such is Schmidt's reputation as a coaching mastermind that this could all be a ruse to lull the Lions into an even greater sense of false security. The verdict in sections of the Australian press took a less kind interpretation. 'Sleepy Joe at the wheel' was the headline on the Roar website, referencing the derogatory nickname Donald Trump gave to Joe Biden.
Certainly, if Schmidt is playing a form of 4D chess it is hard to discern the genius behind going into a Lions series with three fly-halves whose last starts in the gold No 10 shirt came in a 67-27 defeat to Argentina last year (Donaldson), 2022 against Argentina (O'Connor) and never (Lynagh). Lolesio's absence was unfortunate but hardly unforeseeable given his unfortunate track record of injuries. Schmidt has also declined to nominate a captain for the series. So no leader, no frontline 10 and, according to the bookmakers, not much hope against a Lions side that delivered its most impressive performance to date in the 48-0 win against the AUNZ invitational side.
Not so fast says Ian Foster, who was a member of the coaching group for the AUNZ team. Schmidt was part of the All Blacks backroom team under Foster who knocked Andy Farrell's Ireland side out of the 2023 World Cup in a coaching masterclass. And while Foster plainly admits Australia are underdogs, if there is a single reason for optimism he says it lies in Schmidt's ability to concoct a plan.
'He'll (Schmidt) bring a lot of belief because I'm sure that the Wallabies team will know what they want to do and they'll believe in what they want to do, and that's his [Schmidt's] biggest strength,' Foster said. 'They're a quality team, good depth, but that brings complications sometimes at selection time, so you know, I think the test of the tour is how they deal with selection in the next week and keep the rest of the squad happy.
'They (the Lions) will be primed, but there's something about the Wallabies. I just think that if they can be tough enough at the ball carry to be able to get some front-foot ball against the Lions team. They'll be a challenge.'
The decline of Australian rugby has been well documented, particularly in competition with Aussie Rules and rugby league. To provide a small snapshot, the Australian Football League (Aussie Rules) generated $1billion (£480 million) and the National Rugby League AUD $745 million (£362 million) last year; Rugby Australia turned over $120 million. Last Wednesday's State of Origin decider is still being dissected on television while the Lions' tour garners only passing mention.
Now that we are in Test week, business should pick up. There are plenty of juicy subplots from Schmidt v Farrell, Sione Tuipulotu v Joseph Suaalii, Ellis Genge v Taniela Tupou for everyone to get stuck into. Still it is going to require every last drop of Schmidt's motivational and tactical abilities to down the Lions.
Compare this group of players to the Australia sides who started the first Test of the 2001 and 2013 series and the precipitous drop-off in talent is painful to behold. The 2001 Wallabies might be their finest-ever team while even the 2013 vintage still had a world-class core of Israel Folau, Will Genia and Michael Hooper. With the possible exception of Angus Bell and the potential of Suaalii it is hard to make a case for many of the current crop gaining a place in those sides.
Yet according to former second-row Justin Harrison, who helped the Wallabies to a 2-1 series victory in 2001, the one thing that Australians thrive off is being backed into a corner. 'Look at Australia, just about anything that moves in the wildlife can kill you,' Harrison said. 'Whether we are dealing with floods or droughts, we are an adverse frontier country. We are used to being hard against it.
'On a world stage, typically, every single one of our national teams does well from a resource share. We outperform expectations. That's a great position for us to be in. Culturally, we like to be under pressure. We like to prove our point and this Wallaby group will prove that point.
'The Lions squad is built upon a cohesiveness but the Wallabies have a healthy group of players who have got a shared experience in adversity and extreme adversity at the 2023 World Cup. A lot of those players have come out of the Super Rugby Pacific programmes who have won more than they have lost. They are beating Kiwi opposition and getting to a final series (Brumbies). That all means that they are moving into this series with a degree of positive shared experience but also problem-solving and resilience.'
The Lions'; preparation has been far from perfect both in terms of performances and injuries but they seem to be in an exponentially stronger position unless Schmidt has the Wallabies playing possums. For all the silverware that he accumulated with Leinster and Ireland, a series victory would go down as Schmidt's greatest-ever achievement.