Donal Lenihan: How Farrell found the perfect blend to put Lions into Invincibles territory
Head Coach Andy Farrell during the British & Irish Lions Captain's Run at Accor Stadium on Friday. Pic: Billy Stickland, Inpho
Not many Lions squads, dating back to the very first tour in 1888, have carried the mantle of such overwhelming favorites as Andy Farrell’s current crop.
In the circumstances, what his men have achieved, wrapping up the series with a Test to go, deserves respect. Even more so when you consider they had to come back from an 18-point deficit at one stage in Melbourne. Winning in the manner they did at the end will feel so much more satisfying than the comparative stroll in the opening test in Brisbane.
With the series wrapped up, albeit in controversial circumstances after Jac Morgan’s much debated clean-out on Carlo Tizzano in the lead up to Hugo Keenan’s career defining try at the death, understandably interest in the third Test may have waned somewhat.
What the last two weeks has highlighted once again is the mastery of Farrell when it comes to selection. Picking the right combination for a Lions Test can prove challenging given the quality of player at your disposal.
Farrell’s starting combinations for both tests, particularly in the back row and midfield, showed that, once again, Ireland’s head coach got all the marginal calls spot on.
The tweaks he made to the bench, after a disappointing impact from that source in Brisbane, proved crucial in getting over the line at the MCG with Morgan, James Ryan, Ellis Genge and Blair Kinghorn making huge contributions.
While Australia will be shattered to lose out so marginally, today’s final Test offers Joe Schmidt the opportunity to build on a positive performance that should have delivered a shock result.
For the Lions, today’s game is all about completing the tour unbeaten by winning three tests in a row for the first time since Willie-John McBride’s pride of 1974.
To be mentioned in the same breath as those Invincibles would be some feat, even allowing for the quality of opposition and the fact that McBride’s men went unbeaten over a punishing schedule encompassing 22 games. How times have changed.
Farrell has done a brilliant job in keeping everyone on board until the final outing. A win today would prove the icing on the cake.
Schmidt departs the Wallaby scene after the forthcoming Rugby Championship with Les Kiss set to fill the hot seat. No surprise that he leaves Australian rugby in a far better state than the mess he inherited from Eddie Jones.
The biggest challenge facing his popular replacement is a lack of depth. The difference just two players in Will Skelton and Rob Valetini made to their performances from the first to the second test highlights this forcibly.
With that menacing duo scattering every Lion that stood in their path and generating badly needed forward momentum for the Wallabies, all of a sudden they looked a decent team. Deprived of both from the 48th minute onwards, Australia were chalk and cheese.
It reminded me of Ireland back in the naughties when rugby was transitioning from an amateur to a professional game and the depth required to compete on an even keel wasn’t there.
Behind the scrum, the loss of regular out-half Noah Lolesio to injury in the warm-up against Fiji was huge. He had started 12 of the 14 tests Australia had played under Schmidt. His absence meant their attacking shape in the opening Test under a comparative novice in Tom Lynagh was nowhere near as fluent.
With two starts now under Lynagh’s belt that might change today for the clearly talented 22-year-old. The series has shown that, once on the front foot, the Wallabies have the talent, in midfield and out wide, to cause the Lions problems. However the absence of the highly influential Valetini with a recurrence of his calf injury is huge.
Two years out from their own World Cup, Australian rugby may yet look back on this series as the first sign of green shoots. For that to happen, the Wallabies must, once again, display an ability to stress the tourists right to the final whistle.
Given the worrying fall off in the quality of their provincial sides, coupled with the series being over before the final curtain falls in Sydney and a worrying lack of interest in the Wallabies from a sports-mad Australian public, it’s no wonder questions have been asked, in some quarters, about their suitability to host a full Lions tour into the future.
That said, they’ll be no discussions surrounding pastures new at Lions board level, at least until the next tours to the traditional rugby strongholds of New Zealand and South Africa have taken place in 2029 and 2033.
There’s no doubt that Australia’s performance in the second test and the incredible atmosphere generated in the iconic surrounds of the MCG, was welcomed massively not only by Rugby Australia but by everyone involved in making a Lions tour the massive cash cow it has recently become.
The bottom line is that the big three from Down Under have not only come to rely heavily on that financial windfall every 12 years, but view it as a warranted payback for the big paydays the home unions generate every November from their visits north.
The fact the RFU can generate up to £11m hosting the All Blacks at Twickenham is something that has irked the NZRU for years given they only manage to accrue a tiny portion of that when the fixture is reciprocated.
France sending a severely understrength squad to New Zealand this summer hasn’t helped, meaning the big southern hemisphere trio will be doing everything to make sure the existing Lions schedule is adhered to.
As for Ireland, the impact in having an heavily laden green tint on both the Test team and in the coaching box could well manifest itself soon with the next World Cup set to be hosted back in the land of the Wallaby in two years time.
That certainly proved the case the last time Australia hosted the RWC in 2003, two years after English players dominated the 2001 Lions squad. They benefited massively from that experience against the reigning world champions and was definitely a factor when it came to winning that World Cup, beating the Wallabies in Sydney.
Ireland, and by extension Leinster who ended up with 14 players in the Lions squad, 10 seeing Test time, look set to benefit most from the experience. Star hooker Dan Sheehan and true Lions legend Tadhg Furlong spoke after the dramatic win in Melbourne about the benefits of finally getting over the line in a tight contest.
Former New Zealand coach Ian Foster, one of the Anzac’s coaches for their game against the Lions, made reference to the fact that northern hemisphere teams tended to choke when carrying the mantle of favorites in what sounded like a thinly veiled dig at Leinster in the Champions Cup and Ireland against his All Black side at the 2023 World Cup.
For Farrell’s heavily laden Irish tour party, Keenan’s try at the death to bag the series in Melbourne offered a welcome change of fortune for several Irish players on one of the game’s biggest stages.
Regardless of what happens today, winning the series is all that matters on a Lions tour. On that front, the tourists are already in bonus territory.
That said whatever happens next, from a Leinster and Irish perspective, will be very interesting to observe.
