Wallaby goes from long-shot 'Leo' to Lions series hero

Perth Now

a day ago

Australia have been given a painful reminder of how a Test match can turn in a moment and, while the British and Irish Lions were celebrating in Melbourne, the Wallabies had their own time in the sun in Sydney 24 years ago.
In the third and deciding Test, debutant Justin Harrison famously stole a lineout at the death from Lions skipper Martin Johnson to seal the Wallabies' first and only series win over the highly-touted tourists.
Harrison has featured at a World Cup, club rugby in England, and played and coached in France but it's the single moment in his career the lanky lock is always asked about.
"All these years later, it's still the thing I get asked the most about," Harrison told AAP.
"The game happens how it happens and then I get a chance to, at the last minute, to do something meaningful for my country.
"Now when I talk about it I'm comfortable with the fact that it's not about self promotion, it's just about realising a great moment in time that lots of different people find different reasons to remember it fondly."
And yet it almost never happened.
A year earlier, Harrison was told to give up the game after suffering nerve damage in his shoulder.
But he recovered to help the Brumbies win the 2001 Super Rugby title and earn selection in the Australia A team that upset the Lions in a tour match before the first Test.
Harrison was called into the Wallabies training squad, forming part of the "Leos" - the players who were in the squad to help the prepare the Test team - with skipper John Eales and fellow World Cup winner David Giffin ahead of him in second-row selection.
"I knew I was there to hold bags and, you know, steal as much kit as I could get my hands on," he said.
"We were tasked with watching and studying British Lions team performances in their provincial matches and running similar moves and trying to mirror some of the stuff they were doing, so we were called the Leos.
"We didn't pretend to be a particular Lion - Leo was pushing the limit for me.
"I wasn't that comfortable with being told that I had to pretend to be a British and Irish Lion as a player so I certainly wasn't going to inherit one of their names."
With the series at one apiece after the Wallabies were trounced in Brisbane but swung momentum with a win in Melbourne, Harrison thought his big break had come when coach Rod Macqueen came to his Sydney hotel room with "something important" to discuss.
"He starts to talk to me about how team management had had a discussion - 'You've been a really popular member of the team, you've been working really hard, and in Australia A and the Brumbies, you played well'," Harrison recounts.
"Macqueen continued, 'So management are unanimous, on Saturday night we want you to run the water for the team.'
"I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, this is terrible', the first time I'm going take the field with the Wallabies, it's as a bloody water boy."
But Harrison's disappointment turned to confusion and then finally elation after Giffin appeared at his door as he was seeing his coach out.
"Giff says, 'I just wanted to be the first to congratulate you, you're going to start on Saturday night and play against the British and Irish Lions'.
"And I said mate, that is a shit joke, cause Rod McQueen has just told me I'm water boy, so you're too late.
"And 'Giff' goes, 'I've just been with the doctor and management, and I've been ruled out because I've torn my hamstring and they've been ringing Rod McQueen's room to tell him that I'm out and you're in'."
The third Test was a war of attrition but the Wallabies edged ahead in the 76th minute with a Matt Burke penalty goal setting up a 29-23 lead.
Rather than set to defend the maul on their tryline, Harrison told his teammates he was going to contest the lineout and, despite his inexperience, they backed his call.
"Martin Johnson, biggest bloke on the field, captain of the very successful England side, they're going to go to him, the rock," Harrison said.
"There was a huge amount of energy around him coming in ... and I remember saying, I'm going to have a go at this so I was confident that I'd made my decision.
"Their hooker Keith Wood under-threw and Johnson was probably a bit surprised that there's a hand in front of his to catch this ball and then it sort of ricocheted off my hand down to my knee and then back to my chest, and then I land on the ground.
"There's 58 opportunities to knock that ball on and have a scrum and then lose the Test series and I get left as some sort of road kill on the side and I never play for Australia again, but it works out the other way.
"That was it, really basic stuff, not trying to invent a new skill, not trying to do something that was going to be a poster moment ... and now it's something that gets talked about a bit."