Schmidt and Farrell defend their storm approach after Aussies ride the lightning

“I’m not sure what they did, but I know what we did,” Schmidt said after his players stayed more active during the weather delay in Sydney

Sat, 02 Aug, 2025 - 16:53

Simon Lewis, Sydney

Both Andy Farrell and Joe Schmidt agreed the lightning delay which halted the Lions’ final Test against Australia in Sydney on Saturday was a first in their long rugby careers. However the rival head coaches appeared to react in different ways to the unusual situation.

Referee Nika Amakusheli called the players off in the 43rd minute on advice from stadium officials following two lightning strikes within 10 kilometres of Accor Stadium. Safety rules dictated that play could not resume until 30 minutes after the most recent strike and it was 37 minutes before the game was restarted at 9:50pm local time.

“It’s certainly one of the more bizarre, that’s the longest Test match I’ve ever been involved in with the big hiatus in the 43rd minute,” Australia head coach Schmidt said after his side had avoided a series whitewash with a spirited 22-12 win over the Lions.

“But I couldn’t be a lot prouder of the way the players rebounded off the last week of that feeling of disappointment that they had. It was deep. You almost had to let them feel it and then springboard back.”

That the Wallabies returned to the field for their pre-restart warm-up four or five minutes ahead of the Lions suggested that the teams had not received the same information on the length of the delay.

While Lions players were shown via television cameras placed in the dressing room in relaxed mode, sitting on bean bags and looking at their phones, the Wallabies had kept their players rotating through sessions on watt bikes and throwing balls around.

“I’m not sure what they did, but I know what we did,” Schmidt said.

“We had been warned that there might be a bit of lightning, so we had a plan and with that plan we made sure that guys kept moving. We had different guys rotating on and off the bikes, we’d a couple of bikes.

“We’d four balls in the changing room so guys could throw them around, so that guys could stay connected.

“The rest of the time, it was just trying to get us organised for the restart. We knew we had a penalty to touch and a plan, until it didn’t work. The players stayed dialled in very well.”

Farrell said: “We have seen it all now haven’t we? We were trying to work out what the rules were and what was going to happen, at one stage it looked like it was going be 45 minutes then it was pulled back to 30 minutes. There were updates constantly coming in but the lads stayed relaxed enough, had five minutes of a warm-up and got the show back on the road. What came off the back of that is Australia hit the ground running and thoroughly deserved their win."

The Lions head coach bridled at the suggestion that the Wallabies had been better prepared for the restart.

“That’s completely utter rubbish. Utter rubbish.” He added: “You don’t know until you know and when you do know you have to agree the warm-up time allocated is going to be acceptable to both teams. We agreed on 10 minutes for the warm-up and through our advice from our experts in that field we only made the call to come out five minutes before and stay out there so that we would be ready to go.”