Thanks for your company, join us again on Tuesday for the Lions’ match against a First Nations & Pasifika XI.
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Read Robert Kitson’s report from Brisbane
Winning the first Test does not guarantee a series victory but Australia already need a minor miracle. On the evidence of this contest it is going to take something pretty remarkable to stop the Lions from wrapping things up in Melbourne next Saturday and, with thousands of travelling fans cheering them on, Andy Farrell’s side now have firm control of their own destiny.
Andy Farrell is offering his thoughts
“Delighted to get the result, to get the first win under the belt. It’s a big occasion and I think we did the shirt proud and it’s pleasing to come here to the spiritual home of the Wallabies and win. I thought the back row were immense to a man, but in the second half we lacked a bit of discipline so plenty to work on going into game two. We were here in 2013, one win under the belt and against a wounded animal, so we know what’s coming our way.”
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Harry Wilson
“We’re disappointed, we didn’t get our game going until the second half. Nothing will change for us, we needed to win two games coming in and we still need to win two games.”
Lions captain and cap centurion Maro Itoje
“Tough old game. No game of rugby is perfect and that definitely wasn’t perfect, but we can have some honest conversations this week as we put pressure on ourselves, particularly exiting our half. I’ve very humbled, to God be the glory [for 100 caps], I’ve very proud to represent England and the Lions.”
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Tadhg Beirne has been awarded player of the match
“Proper Test match, victory in last quarter and it was a real battle. As a performance overall we stepped up and we go again into next week. Discipline will be a focus for us for next week. My performances leading up to this match weren’t my best so I’m pleased to have been given this opportunity and I hope I did the selection justice”
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The game was won by the Lions in the opening quarter with Australia never looking like clawing back the deficit created early on. The Wallabies came back stronger in the second half and can go into next week knowing they can force penalties out of the Lions under pressure, and the huge positive of their scrum platform.
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FULL TIME! The Lions win the first Test in Brisbane.
80 mins. Kelleher’s throw is stolen and McDermott sends it off the park to confirm a comfortable victory for the Lions.
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79 mins. Australia attempt to play from their own line. A loose pass flies past Potter and into touch to give Lions a 5m lineout.
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TRY! Australia 19 - 27 Lions (Tate McDermott)
78 mins. Another solid Wallaby scrum, the real feelgood story of this match for them, launches an attack left to Potter who has a strong carry forward to set up a position for McDermott to drive over with great strength through a couple of tacklers.
Conversion added.
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75 mins. A clever angled kick from Wilson puts the ball into touch on the Lions 22. The possession is returned to the home side via Smith’s boot and as the Wallabies start to move the ball in midfield Itoje knocks on as part of making a tackle.
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PENALTY! Australia 12 - 27 Lions (Marcus Smith)
73 mins. Australia are the own worst enemy again; this time, after winning a scrum to exit their 22, Kellaway spills the ball. The Lions pounce and move back into the 22 for Aki to have a powerful run. He is stopped eventually but the gold defence is offside and Smith, on for Russell, extends the lead again.
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70 mins. The Lions decide to assert themselves again with some busy carries just inside the Aus half, but Freeman loses possession when forcing an offload that wasn’t really on.
TRY! Australia 12 - 24 Lions (Carlo Tizzano)
68 mins. A simple catch and drive, followed by even more drives has sub Tizzano forcing over through a crowd.
Donaldson adds two and the mood of the game has changed a bit.
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65 mins. We’re still in the Lions half and Australia continue to put more of a challenge in. A ball is kicked toward Jorgensen in acres of space on the right but it’s too far in front for him to reach. But it was being played on an Aus advantage and they will set up for another attacking lineout.
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62 mins. While it’s not exactly barnstorming stuff, Australia are having a bit more of the game of late and the latest possession finds Harry Wilson on the left touchline who puts a delicate probing grubber towards the tryline. Harry Potter gives chase but can’t reach it before it kisses the touchline to end the attack.
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Australia try ruled out
60 mins. Sualii takes the ball on the crash angle and looks to be stopped short before wriggling over. The ref awards it on the field but the TMO suggests it could have been a double movement, akin to the Jones score that was scrubbed off in the first half.
In the end, the ref rules that it’s NO TRY – not for double movement, but for Sualii being dragged over the line by the Lions defenders, and the reason that happened is because he didn’t release the ball. Penalty Lions!
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59 mins. Possession is secured from the lineout and the phases start again from the home side as they send runners into a red defence who are offside once more. The advantage produces nothing, so they will go again from a lineout.
Ref O’Keefe warns Maro Itoje that another penalty down here will a yellow card make.
56 mins. Some pace on the recycling of the ball is displayed by Australia and this immediately puts the Lions defence in trouble and offside. On the advantage Harry Wilson squirms over the line, is called as held up and we’ll go back for the penalty.
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54 mins. The biggest disappointment about the Australia performance is how disorganised and lacking in cohesion they appear, which is a million miles away from how a Joe Schmidt team is usually prepared and set up. But they will have another chance to look like they’ve actually trained together from an incoming lineout in the Lions 22.
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53 mins. From the lineout Australia start moving forward before a combination of Beirne and Sheehan hold up Ikitau to win the ball when it gets stuck after the ref calls maul.
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51 mins. Nine phases for the Aussies, each one more pointless than the last until the final one has Jeremy Williams dropping the ball. To be fair, had he caught it he would have been standing still a metre away from the a wall of red defenders so the result would have been likely the same.
The resulting scrum has another penalty awarded to the Wallabies, which is more evidence of the scrum being on top.
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49 mins. The TMO has spotted a shoulder-to-head clearout by Furlong on Ikitau in a ruck earlier in the possession. Ref O’Keefe decides that the Wallaby changed his position late and that’s enough mitigation to make it a penalty only against the Lions prop.
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48 mins. The Lions have a lineout incoming and take the opportunity to replace Genge with Andrew Porter. The ball is won cleanly by the visitors and another attack in the Wallaby half commences. A grubber is tickled into the corner by Tuipulotu but it rolls over the whitewash before Lowe gets to it.
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46 mins. Surprisingly, one thing that is going well for the home side is the scrum and another solid one has them moving forward in the Lions half after Gordon feeds Lynagh. There is an untidy ruck where Curry looks offside, but ref O’Keefe disagrees, and on the next phase two Wallabies run into each other and give away a crossing penalty.
It really is very poor stuff from Australia.
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43 mins. Joe McCarthy is leaving the field, replaced by Ollie Chessum.
TRY! Australia 5 - 24 Lions (Dan Sheehan)
42 mins. A tidy restart drill from the Lions allows Gibson-Park to clear to touch. This is another chance for Australia to launch an attack in opposition territory that they duly ruin, this time with an overthrow in the lineout that Curry steals. The ball is moved quickly to the right via a couple of phases and Sheehan puts an impressive finish in the corner.
Russell slots a wonderful conversion
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SECOND HALF!
It’s Lynagh’s turn to restart the match, which he duly does.
A dominant half from the Lions in line with predictions. The score could and should have been worse for Australia but for some missed opportunities and snatching at chances from the tourists.
Joe Schmidt will be fuming that his side are their own worst enemy too often, with lost lineouts and some awful basics spewing their limited possession and territory away.
Don’t be surprised if both sides double their score in the second half as this has the hallmarks of a walloping for the Wallabies.
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HALF TIME!
40 mins. Play is confined to the middle third for a few minutes with both sides trading some kicks. Gibson-Park, who has started to put his stamp on the game in the second quarter, puts another good kick up to pressure Lynagh who does well to field it before he is smashed in the air by a Curry tackle.
Penalty awarded and the Aussies decide that’s a good time to get the ball off the park to go and seek some advice from their coach.
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TRY! Australia 5 - 17 Lions (Tom Curry)
36 mins. Metres from the line, the forwards take it in turns to drive forward off a Gibson-Park pass, and when it’s Curry’s turn he muscles over through two tacklers.
Russell converts.
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34 mins. The clearing drop-kick from Lynagh does nothing but invite more Lions phases in the 22. There is a huge overlap on the right, but instead of simply going through a draw and pass routine to exploit it, Gibson-Park eats up all the space by chucking a miss-pass to Lowe who puts his head down but is surrounded by three gold defenders.
32 mins. Lions attacking territory returns quickly after the try as they are back in the 22 and causing problems. Russell spots McCarthy lurking on the left wing so dabs a kick in the big man’s direction, but it’s a little bit too far in front of him and he can’t gather it cleanly; instead he flaps it touch in goal.
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TRY! Australia 5 - 10 Lions (Max Jorgensen)
28 mins. Jake Gordon puts a box kick up in the air and it drops onto Keenan as Jorgensen arrives to rise and snaffle the ball from under the Lions fullback’s nostrils. He returns to the ground and sprints to the corner to get his side on the scoreboard.
Lynagh misses the extra two from out wide.
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26 mins. Freeman is prominent again, this time in defence as he does well to field a kick down by his feet without knocking on, then immediately undoes the good work by blootering the ball into touch on the full from outside the 22. However, the great Australian maladroitness continues with Beirne nicking the lineout in a promising position.
The Lions have another attack, with Genge carrying strongly before another knock gives the opportunity for a bit of ill-tempered pushing and shoving. Then there’s a Wallabies scrum, from which they win a penalty!
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24 mins. From the scrum way back in the Aus half, Gibson-Park goes blind to Freeman who attempts a chip and chase into the corner but the winger can only watch as the ball drifts into touch.
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22 mins. Nothing is going well for Australia; the latest example being a long kick from Lynagh that is this close to a 50:22 but rolls just the wrong side of the corner flag to go touch-in-goal.
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Lions try ruled out
19 mins. The Lions spring again after stealing an Aussie lineout, all driving, direct running and fizzing passes as they move it left to Jones. He is bumped and dropped short of the line by Jorgenson before he gets up and dives over to score. The try is awarded initially but the TMO asks ref O’Keefe to have another look.
On review they decide, correctly, that it was a double movement by Jones as the tackle was completed when he was short of the line. NO TRY!
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18 mins. The Wallabies work up to 18 phases for a net gain of virtually nothing. It was all very laboured, predictable and pedestrian. Eventually the ball is stolen by the Lions and cleared. A very depressing period of play for the home fans
15 mins. A move from the back of the scrum just inside the Lions half switches play from the blindside back to Lynagh for him to caress a cross kick towards the left wing. Keenan covers it but he is forced to dive to field it and spill the ball forward.
Australia have an attacking scrum near the Lions 22.
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13 mins. Each Wallaby possession is being stumped either by their own poor precision or forcing the ball. Some early panic is already present and this simply invites more Lions trouble onto them. They are lucky that the latest raid by the visitors into their half ends with Freeman knocking on.
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TRY! Australia 0 - 10 Lions (Sione Tuipulotu)
9 mins. Sheehan finds himself in space and running in the 13 channel in the Wallaby half which leads to a couple of hard carries from the forwards before Russell calls for it and nonchalantly floats a miss-two pass to Tuipulotu, who strolls through a gap and in from five metres out.
The conversion is good and this already looks a long way back for Australia.
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7 mins. The ball is won by the tourists and fed into the midfield for a couple of phases, but McReight spots that Jones is isolated in the ruck and gets his hands on. The ref’s whistle blasts loud to award the penalty, accompanied by cheers from the Wallaby players and fans.
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5 mins. Finn Russell is looking imperious early on and his latest bit of class is a raking diagonal kick that forces Potter to play the ball into touch in the 22 which hands the Lions a good attacking platform.
3 mins. Australia don’t let that early setback put them into their shell and Lynagh finds a small gap in the Lions defence around halfway. He darts through it but his offload to Sualii doesn’t go to hand and the ball is cleared by Gibson-Park.
PENALTY! Australia 0 - 3 Lions (Finn Russell)
1 min. The kick-off is gathered with little fuss by the Wallabies, but the second tackle has Beirne getting hands on the ball and the home side are pinged for holding on.
Itoje points to the posts and Russell does the necessary.
Kick-off!
The crowd count us down and Finn Russell boots the test series under way.
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Officials for this match:
Referee: Ben O’Keeffe (New Zealand)
Assistant Referees: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia) & Andrea Piardi (Italy)
Television Match Official (TMO): Richard Kelly (New Zealand)
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The teams are out into the Brisbane night, disco lights flashing and dramatic music pumping as we settle in for the Aussie anthem.
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“Can’t fix anything now, the detail is done. This is all about emotion and commitment,” says John Barclay on the telly as the teams head down the tunnel to return to the changing room before kick-off. He’s right as well.
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The stadium tannoy is belting out Men At Work’s “Down Under” and the crowd are doing the part in the singalong. Sounds belting as well; the atmosphere is building.
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Pre-match reading
You lot out there must have an opinion or six about what is about to unfold; and no doubt you’ll have more as the game progresses. Don’t be shy, slap them in an email to me.
Team news
Joe Schmidt is without powerful forwards Rob Valetini and Will Skelton, taking away more ballast from the already uneven mismatch up front. There are debuts at openside for Nick Champignon de Crespigny and at stand-off for Tom Lynagh, son of Wallaby legend Michael who lost a Lions series in 1989. Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has recovered to take his place at outside-centre, where much is expected of him, perhaps unfairly given the torrid time his forwards are expected to encounter.
A combination of injuries and Andy Farrell’s general pig-headedness has given us a Lions selection that could have been predicted in the main from a long way out. There is the small surprise of Tom Curry starting ahead of Josh van der Flier at 7, with the Irish breakaway out of the squad entirely with Ben Earl’s positional flexibility preferred on the bench.
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Teams
Line-ups for this first Test:
Australia
Tom Wright, Max Jorgensen, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Len Ikitau, Harry Potter, Tom Lynagh, Jake Gordon; James Slipper, Matt Faessler, Allan Alaalatoa, Nick Frost, Jeremy Williams, Nick Champion de Crespigny, Fraser McReight, Harry Wilson. Replacements: Billy Pollard, Angus Bell, Tom Robertson, Tom Hooper, Carlo Tizzano, Tate McDermott, Ben Donaldson, Andrew Kellaway.
British & Irish Lions
Hugo Keenan, Tommy Freeman, Huw Jones, Sione Tuipulotu, James Lowe, Finn Russell, Jamison Gibson-Park; Ellis Genge, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, Maro Itoje, Joe McCarthy, Tadhg Beirne, Tom Curry, Jack Conan. Replacements: Ronan Kelleher, Andrew Porter, Will Stuart, Ollie Chessum, Ben Earl, Alex Mitchell, Marcus Smith, Bundee Aki.
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Preamble
Welcome to the beginning of the business end of the Lions tour 2025. All of the performances, incredibly awkward and forced social media content, and speculation about who will be selected for the big one has led to this: Australia vs British & Irish Lions in Brisbane.
All of the talk in the build up has focused more on the margin of the expected Lions victory with the result an apparently foregone conclusion. The Wallabies are currently ranked 6th in the world, and have only climbed from 8th due to losses by Argentina and Scotland in recent weeks, while the visitors are pulling from a fuller stock of four nations.
But as the old saying goes, “if you’re so clever, why are you not rich?” and Andy Farrell knows the expectation and feels the weight this places on his unpadded shoulders. And speaking of clever, Joe Schmidt, a man with a rugby brain the size of the Lions updated tour squad, has a completely pressure free environment to let his synapses run riot with diabolical plans and tactics to derail the tourist’s putative victory caravan.
It’s remains a tall order for the home side and in a few hours we will know the true extent of its height.
Kick-off: 11am BST, 8pm AEST
