Lions end of tour wrap: Keenan's try, Beirne's performances and Ringrose's selflessness
SERIES WINNING TRY: Hugo Keenan overcame an injury and illness to pop up at the most important time to score the winning try to clinch the Series. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
The rain that fell relentlessly for five days in Sydney finally abated on Monday. As blue skies return to city’s skyline, the mass exodus of British & Irish Lions supporters continued and hotels emptied as quickly as the lower tier of Accor Stadium on Saturday night during the lightning delay that interrupted the final Test with Australia.
It was a flat, and soggy, ending to the 2025 tour for Andy Farrell’s squad as the Wallabies finally got the victory they felt their play had deserved for at least three halves of Test rugby across as many weeks. Yet the Lions have departed Australian shores with heads held high after securing a 2-1 series victory and while the naysayers, mostly from afar, will argue it has been an underwhelming tour, the scale of their achievement in delivering that success for the first time in a dozen years and only the third time in the professional era should be celebrated, particularly by Irish rugby supporters.
Led by Ireland’s head coach and the bulk of his national team coaches and performance staff, this has been the most green-tinged of Lions tours, with a record number of Ireland players who delivered some excellent individual performances as the backbone of a winning side.
Lions board chair and tour manager Ieuan Evans, a series-winning player himself in that historic 1997 victory over South Africa, underlined just how difficult one of these tours is to get right.
“These tours are not designed to be easy to win and compete in,” the former Wales wing said on Sunday before the 90-strong touring party of players, coaches and staff members were scattered to the four winds.
“Winning Lions teams are supposed to be really challenging, really exceptionally challenging. You have to have the right culture in order to succeed as well as the talent and the hard work.
“You expect that talent and hard work to come to the fore because the players of this sort of quality do not get to where they are without it,” Evans added. But you need the culture to allow that to come to the fore and Andy Farrell is exceptional at that.”
Evans’ view of Farrell’s ability to create that winning environment for a group of athletes from four different nations over such a short period of time has been endorsed, tellingly, by many of the non-Irish players selected by the head coach.
England back-rower Ben Earl has raved about his experience every time has faced the media here, saying earlier on the tour he had learned more in five weeks with the Lions than he had in the previous four years. That may say as much about the English national set-up as it does about his Lions tour but his take on Farrell had not diminished by the end of the series, in which the Saracens forward came off the bench during the first and third Tests.
“He has made me fully believe in how good I am,” Earl said of the Lions boss on Saturday night. “Every time he talks to the group, I'm like, I'll do anything for that man - I'm ready to play.
“Even when I'm not playing. Like, obviously, how many times am I not playing, maybe four or five times. Like, every time he spoke to the group, I'm like, God, when the time comes, I'm ready to play for this bloke.
"I still feel like if there was any circumstance where I would end up wearing that jersey, I know he'd back me 100% and he'd make me feel like I fully deserve that. And I think that's just testament to him, testament to the environment created, along with the other coaches."
Was this a great Lions team and tour? It may not be in the pantheon of the giants of 1974 and 1997 and others of much older stock but it was a winning outfit that overcame a Wallabies side which grew into the series after a poor start and belied the gloomy predictions of Joe Schmidt’s side being whitewashed by cricket scores.
That it was a competitive series validates the battling and competitive qualities which Farrell’s players possess and value of their series victory. That deserves credit.
Nothing will beat the ingredients that went into making the Second Test so memorable. A crowd of 90,307 at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground, a stirring return to form from the Wallabies to take a 23-5 lead inside 30 minutes, and an epic fightback from the Lions sealed courtesy of Hugo Keenan try in the last minute that was controversial in its making. It sealed a first series win for the Lions since 2013, was the first 2-0 lead created by the Lions since 1997 and was a wonderful, wonderful occasion.
To think Tadhg Beirne’s selection at blindside flanker was considered a risk, the Munster and Ireland star’s performance levels were off the charts and he fully deserved the honour.
Max Jorgensen, the Waratahs wing is just 20 years old but he impressed in the number 11 jersey throughout the series, scoring in the first and third Tests, his try on Saturday as he pounced a loose ball on halfway showcasing his power and pace.
Garry Ringrose’s selfless decision to remove himself from the side for the second Test due to concussion symptoms two days out from the MCG match, thereby allowing Huw Jones time to prepare as his midfield replacement.
Hugo Keenan’s tour got off to a nightmarish start, denied his Lions debut, initially by a minor injury and then a virus that by his own admission.
“I was sick for about 12 days. I couldn't stop, yeah… getting off the jacks was an issue. Yeah, I lost about five or six kilos. It was a rough few weeks,” the full-back said memorably having made just two appearances ahead of starting all three Tests and becoming the player who secured the series win in Melbourne.
The Lions secured that series having led the second Test only by a matter of seconds, thanks to Keenan’s excellent finish as the men in red, prompted by Finn Russell, kept their cool, stuck to the plan and managed the game better than the Wallabies. It needed a much-debated ruck clear-out by Jac Morgan on opposing replacement back-rower Carlo Tizzano to get the job done, which only added to the drama before referee Andrea Piardi concluded there was no foul play and wild celebrations ensued.
The Series-winning moment...
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Andy Farrell and captain Maro Itoje’s media conference after the second Test being drowned out the by a dressing-room sing-song conducted by a squad of roaring Lions.
The Sydney rain which did its best to ruin the spectacle for 80,000-plus supporters at Accor Stadium on Saturday night, including a near 40-minute lightning delay. It coincided with the poorest Lions performance of the tour and the Wallabies’ best, a 22-12 defeat of the tourists that hopefully restores faith in the green and gold among supporters in a challenging sports market dominated by Aussie Rules and Rugby League.
That Josh van der Flier, so dependable for Farrell as a near-permanent selection in the Ireland back-row at openside flanker, was overlooked for the series and did not play a minute of rugby as a Test Lion despite putting in some impressive performances on tour. A crying shame for the 2022 World Rugby men’s player of the year.
“Our Wives Think We’re At Coldplay” – Lions supporters’ banner at the First Nations & Pasifika game in Melbourne.
Joe Schmidt reverting to schoolteacher mode to explain Jac Morgan’s clearout on Australia’s Carlo Tizzano: "We are all aware of Newton's third law (of motion) - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When that force hits him and the speed of his head collapsing down, he recoiled out the back of the ruck.
"I don't think he wanted to recoil like that but that's the nature of force. That there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
A tie between Jamie Osborne’s “Showbiz” and Ollie Chessum’s “Bin Chicken”, the colloquial name given in these parts to the Australian White Ibis, a long-nosed bird seen wandering around city centres pecking at food thrown on the floor or left on outdoor tables.
: 9, Won: 8, Lost: 1
: Won 2-1
: 49
:
- Ronan Kelleher, Alex Mitchell – 8 each
- Tadhg Beirne, Ben Earl, Tadhg Furlong, Ellis Genge, Huw Jones, Jac Morgan, Will Stuart – 7 each
- Bundee Aki, Ollie Chessum, Jack Conan, Tom Curry, Tommy Freeman, Jamison Gibson-Park, Maro Itoje, Andrew Porter, Finn Russell, James Ryan, Dan Sheehan – 6 each.
:
- Tadhg Beirne – 507
- Huw Jones – 455
- Tommy Freeman – 428
- Maro Itoje – 419
- Finn Russell – 419
- Jack Conan – 414
:
- Duhan van der Merwe – 5
- Huw Jones – 4
- Dan Sheehan – 3
- Garry Ringrose - 3
:
- Finn Russell – 44
- Duhan van der Merwe – 25
- Fin Smith – 21
- Marcus Smith – 16
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