Make no mistake, these Lions would have gone toe-to-toe with All Blacks and Springboks

Telegraph

2 days ago

The British and Irish Lions have not white-washed their opposition since 1927 and have not won three Tests on the spin since the legendary 1974 tour. Defeating Australia in Sydney on Saturday was never going to be easy, especially with how the Melbourne Test ended. Then add in the fact that the Lions players are heading into the 11th month of their 2024/25 season, the biblical rain in New South Wales, and then a 30-minute interruption for thunderstorms and it turned an already tough challenge into a steeper, more chaotic one.
The Lions struggled to bring the energy from the first half of the opener and then the second half in Melbourne. They lacked that edge, but there is no shame in that. This week, Martin Johnson reiterated three or four times how when his side were 2-0 up in 1997 he just knew, heading into that third Test, as he looked around the changing room, that there was something missing. It was something intangible and almost undefinable but, emotionally, there was that extra notch that was missing. It is so difficult to go down deep into the well again when you know the job is done. That is an unbelievable barrel you have to scrape.
That is what the 2025 Lions experienced this weekend, coupled with the lightning disruption, too, which also harmed emotional preparation. This group might have lost in Sydney but that does little to diminish their achievement. You are always a vintage Lions group if you win a series – no matter the opposition. After all, they could only beat what was put in front of them, which is critical to highlight. The difference between winning and losing a series, notwithstanding the score or the adversary, is that 'look' that Sir Ian McGeechan always spoke about. If you win a Lions series, you have a bond for life. This group will be meeting up in 25, 30 years' time having achieved something special. By then, history will have forgotten the finer details. People have been too quick to say 'the Lions should have won'. They've achieved something that so few touring teams have done.
The 2025 Lions are an awesome bunch of lads and there is no doubt in my mind that they would have gone toe-to-toe with the likes of New Zealand and South Africa. Such comparisons are hypothetical – futile, even – but the Lions were putting world-class players out on the pitch on a weekly basis. Players who have beaten both the All Blacks and the Springboks with their respective countries.
Yes, I'm a pundit but I'm also an ex-player. You look at the calibre of some of those Lions: Dan Sheehan, Maro Itoje, Tadhg Beirne, Tom Curry, Jamison Gibson-Park and Finn Russell. Special people and special players. Sheehan is the obvious candidate for player of the series – and he is the player the Lions might have missed most through injury – but really it could have gone to any of the aforementioned.
Australia can look back on this series with pride having been written off. They controlled the game in Sydney, admittedly with the series lost, but they had two halves which are worth remembering and bottling up for belief heading into the Rugby Championship. Taniela Tupou absolutely should have been in the Wallabies' starting XV before Sydney and there is an argument that the same could be said of Nic White, too. It is all a learning process given these were Australia's first matches of their season. I wonder whether Joe Schmidt will look back and reflect on those as selection errors or whether he would look at it and think: 'We won one and could on a different day have won another as it was.'
Australia's error was letting the Lions get away with a relatively comfortable first Test victory which meant the tourists had a chance to wrap it up after two Tests – and succeeded. As Sydney proved, that is critical to the Lions' chances. The Lions never want to take it to a third Test on foreign soil, with the series on the line, at the end of a long tour. Especially when there are things outside of your control which can cause disruption like the heavens opening and lightning striking. You might say it's the same for both sides but those uncontrollable disruptions are far more troublesome when you are favourites than when you are underdogs. The underdogs want chaos, they want anything which can disturb the favourites' rhythm.
The Lions lost tonight but they will be remembered as series winners. That is how history will remember them: not as underachievers, not as a lucky group, not as a group who got on the right side of the referee and not as a group who struggled with the conditions in the third Test. But winners. They achieved something that many other squads, filled with some of the best names in Lions history, have failed to do, against an opposition which started slowly but grew and improved as the series progressed.
The message all week from the Lions and Andy Farrell was that 3-0 was the aim. Beirne said it to me on the pitch after the loss. Farrell is a perfectionist and he will have been shooting for that historic 'redwash'. Fundamentally, however, the coach will just be happy to fly home with the trophy and an historic series victory, which is never a foregone conclusion.