The Wallabies were brave in Melbourne but the true test of their courage comes now. Despite snatching defeat from the jaws of victory yet again, they must try to put aside the disappointment of the last-gasp 29-26 defeat at the MCG and debate over that contentious 80th minute non-penalty, and win the final Test to deny the Lions a 3-0 sweep. The Wallabies can’t save the series but they can save face in Sydney on Saturday – and claw back a little of the goodwill they squandered in letting the Lions off the hook with 90,307 fans in the stands and millions more watching on screens at home.
It won’t be easy. All week Australians have torn themselves apart wrestling with one of the crueller defeats in the Wallabies’ woebegone recent history. Moods have swung between grieving and aggrieved, despair and defiance. On one hand the wider public are mourning a gut-wrenching defeat, a once-every-12-years opportunity lost amid an embarrassing, yet painfully familiar, inability to ruthlessly close out a game they were bossing with a 23-5 lead. On the other hand they are still aggrieved that Australia’s early dominance over the Lions was denied at the death by a 50-50 decision.
Carlo Tizzano’s theatrics – reeling from the contact with operatic passion, hands clutching the back of his head in mock-agony – have also polarised. Was this cowardly “diving” or canny gamesmanship to catch the camera’s eye? Alas, Italian referee Andrea Piardi sang only from the song sheet of officialdom. He ignored Tizzano’s squatter’s rights to the ball in the ruck to reward Jac Morgan’s lethal clean-out a split second later.
In the chaos, the Wallabies lost possession. The Lions cleared to the left and found space for Hugo Keenan to scramble over the line. Game over. Series won – and lost. For Wallabies fans who have endured a torrid two decades of decline, it was another cruel blow. But not an undeserving one. Australia had tempted the fates when young fly-half Tom Lynagh coughed up a kick under no pressure to spark two Lions tries that saw Australia’s 18-point ascendancy vanish into a slender six-point buffer at the break.
Yes, Piardi’s decision had denied Australia a penalty that would’ve secured victory and squared the series one-all. But sport is built on drama, not justice. Rugby clings to respect for the referee as sacrosanct. Both captains Harry Wilson and Maro Itoje addressed Piardi as “sir” throughout (even though the honorary title often gets lost in a torrent of profanity afterwards). For all its wine-producing and guzzling, sour grapes are not Australia’s go. This, after all, is the land of “cop it sweet”.
The real cost for the Wallabies was bottling a golden chance to win back floating fans with a famous victory at the nation’s most storied colosseum. With a World Cup to host in 2027, Australian rugby badly needed a boilover victory against an all-star touring side to give Joe Schmidt’s ragged band of players a jolt of confidence before another arduous Rugby Championship against the All Blacks, South Africa and Argentina starting on 17 August.
Instead, the opportunity for a week of fever pitch anticipation for a decider before more than 80,000 fans at the former Olympic stadium has been lost. Worse, the largely self-inflicted calamity in Melbourne has reopened old wounds of other near-victories cruelly vaporised – Kurtley Beale slipping in the mud to gift the 2013 Lions their first series win in 16 years, Bernard Foley penalised for time wasting when the Wallabies had the All Blacks on the rack in 2022.
Are the Wallabies cursed? Former Socceroo Johnny Warren claimed an unpaid debt led a Mozambique witch-doctor to put a hex on Australian soccer in 1970 and led to a series of bizarre losses and a 32-year World Cup exile. Melbourne Demons fans swore the sacking of legendary coach Norm Smith in 1965 sparked the club’s premiership drought until 2021. Footballers are superstitious creatures. In theatre circles it’s unlucky to say “Macbeth” before a performance and apparently these Wallabies won’t utter the name “Eddie Jones” aloud for fear of ghosting by their old coach.
But superstition is borne from fear. The Wallabies must banish any demons from Melbourne and set their jaws for a last stand with these hungry Lions, not for their sake as much as ours. US basketball coach Dick Motta used to tell his troops “you cannot find victory unless you first understand defeat … but show me a good loser in pro sport and I’ll show you an idiot.” Australian fans are sick of lionising brave defeats and Schmidt can’t shrug off the loss in Melbourne if he’s to win Sydney. As the NRL and AFL close in, winning a “dead rubber” in front of a full house keeps Wallabies hope alive.
