The final midweek game of this Lions tour was always destined to be something of a mixed bag. Towards the end there were a clutch of unlikely red‑shirted players out on the field and the outcome was still in doubt up until the closing moments. Two tries for Jamie Osborne eventually squeezed his side home but very little about the evening turned out to be comfortable.
In terms of pointers towards second-Test selection the picture was also fairly blurred. Blair Kinghorn, back from a strained knee, showed some excellent touches but also had a couple of passes intercepted. Jamie George’s lineout throwing was consistently good while Owen Farrell’s no‑nonsense instructions to his team were audible from the stands 50 metres away.
Ben White also showed up particularly well at scrum-half but the back row collectively endured a tough night and the Lions, once again, purred only in fits and starts. Not that this year’s most unlikely Lions Gregor Brown, Ewan Ashman and Tom Clarkson will particularly care, having all made it off the bench and on to the field in the second half. Whatever else happens in their careers no one can ever take that honour away from them.
The First Nations & Pasifika side will also have enjoyed it. This trip has not been notable for the pedigree contributions of the Australian Super Rugby sides but here, at last, was a pumped-up team fully prepared to mix it. Lukhan Salakaia-Loto and Charlie Gamble both reinforced their claims for inclusion among the most awkward opponents the Lions have encountered, and three or four of the opposing pack would not look out of place in Wallabies jerseys in the final two Tests.
The net result was the closest contest of the Australian leg of the tour, a 70th‑minute score from replacement back-rower Rob Leota narrowing the scoreboard gap to just five points. Had Kurtley Beale, their captain, been able to kick the conversion it might have been even tighter but, to their relief, the cobbled‑together Lions were able to cling on. And with Mack Hansen still struggling for fitness it may be that Kinghorn, for one, is required to double up in some capacity this weekend.
This game had been slated originally to involve the Melbourne Rebels before the franchise folded last year, requiring Rugby Australia to rustle up some different opposition. The outcome was a hybrid side containing six Indigenous Australian representatives, with the rest of the squad comprising players of Pacific Island heritage.
The objective was to be more competitive than the combined Australia & New Zealand side who lost 48-0 in Adelaide 10 days ago and, on paper, the team lacked for neither talent nor muscle. So it proved, not least in a feisty first half which, after a confident start, did not go as the Lions might have wished.
First Nations & Pasifika XV: Muirhead; Reilly, Foketi, Feliuai, (McLeod, 41) Daugunu (Debreczeni, 11); Beale (capt), Thomas (Goddard, 55); Ieli (Pearce, 55), Paenga-Amosa (Asiata, 46), Tupou (Doge 46), Swain, Salakaia-Loto, Uru (Leota, 52), Gamble, Taii Tualima (Vocevoce, 67).
Sin-bin: Reilly (4)
Tries: Reilly, Uru, Leota. Cons: Beale 2.
British & Irish Lions: Kinghorn; Graham (Ringrose, 17), Osborne, Farrell, Van der Merwe; F Smith (M Smith, 67-73), White; Schoeman (Sutherland, 74), George (Ashman, 73), Bealham (Clarkson, 51), Ryan (Brown, 54), Cummings, Morgan (Earl, 51), Van der Flier, Pollock.
Sin-bin: Ryan (23)
Unused replacement: Mitchell.
Tries: Osborne 2, Graham, Van der Merwe. Cons: F Smith 2.
Referee: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia)
Initially it had all been relatively smooth, the Lions enjoying an early numerical advantage when the winger Triston Reilly was sent to the sin‑bin for a high shoulder on Darcy Graham. A nice left-footed chip from Farrell duly set up Osborne for the game’s opening score and Graham, another of the tour’s recent arrivals, then scampered clear for a second.
Any feeling of satisfaction felt by the latter at registering a first Lions try, however, was short-lived, the Scottish winger limping off with a lower leg injury after just 16 minutes. While he at least has something tangible to show for his Lions experience, it was an all-too-brief cameo.
It was also the signal for their opponents to spring into life. Roused by a couple of scraps, including an impromptu wrestling bout between Henry Pollock and Seru Uru, the First Nations & Pasifika side scored an interception try through Reilly and then claimed a second score when Uru burst unstoppably over from close range, with James Ryan shown a yellow card for illegally trying to snuff out the danger.
Not for the first time on this tour, Gamble was also making a nuisance of himself at the breakdown and any Lions momentum began to ebb away. At 14-14 at half-time the touring side clearly needed fresh impetus so it was a timely bonus when a neat Kinghorn catch-and-pass put Osborne away for his second of the night. The Leinster utility back is a useful footballer and is another player whose stock will rise on the back of this trip.
Still, though, the Lions could not pull away. Josh van der Flier had a potential fourth score chalked off for a fractional knock-on by Garry Ringrose in the buildup and the Irish flanker had the ball ripped from him by the full-back Andy Muirhead five metres from the line.
It took until the final quarter for Duhan van der Merwe to give his side some breathing space, with Farrell again involved in the buildup. The latter still rates the 2013 midweek game against the Rebels as one of his favourite Lions memories and there is something about Melbourne, with its trams and sport-obsessed vibe, that seems to suit him.
