Duncan Casey: The moment that encapsulated Lions’ sloppy display in third Test
Max Jorgensen of Australia scores his side's second try. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
One seemingly innocuous moment summed up the Lions’ defeat to Australia on Saturday more than any other. It’s one most people would have paid little attention to but which illustrates the major consequences a split-second of poor attitude can have for a team.
It comes in the lead up to Max Jorgensen’s brilliantly taken turnover try that put the Wallabies 15-0 up in the 55th minute. Jorgensen showed his terrific instincts and pace to finish the effort but he had less work to do than he should have.
The Lions are attacking from a ruck on the right-hand side. Tadgh Beirne gives the ball out the back to Finn Russell, who throws it behind a hard-running Tom Curry to Owen Farrell. Farrell has Blair Kinghorn and Bundee Aki outside him.
Aki is looking for a skip pass to be thrown directly to him and is in front of Kinghorn as a result. Farrell instead opts to hit Kinghorn, who attempts to ship the ball on quickly without looking, not realising Aki is in front. Aki has to turn to try and gather the pass but fails, and the ball spills forward towards Dan Sheehan and Jorgensen out wide.
"Playing the whistle" is a concept every player, in every sport, is taught to observe from the earliest possible age, but it’s one some players at every level continue to ignore, as Kinghorn does here. Despite being the one that caused the knock on in the first place, he throws his hands up in the air, mutters something in disgust and even turns to look the other direction.
Instead of reacting to the knock-on by following the ball and being ready to respond to any "worst case scenario" developments, he disengages completely in the assumption there will be a ruck on the touchline.
Jorgensen snaffles the ball from Sheehan and takes off down the wing. By the time Kinghorn realises what is happening, his opposite man is halfway to full tilt and between facing the wrong way and coming from a standing start, he can’t get within an ass’ roar of doing anything about it.
To his credit, Finn Russell reacts as you would expect a Lions starter to react, despite being much further away from the play. He pays attention to how things unfold, remains on his toes and reacts as soon as he sees Jorgensen gather and go.
Unfortunately, he is too far away to make up the ground but the intent is there. Had Kinghorn reacted the same way, there is a good chance he would have gotten enough purchase on Jorgensen to, at least, break his stride and give others a chance to finish the job. As I said, this is something I’ve seen at every level of rugby I have been involved with, from playing 3rd division in Belgium, to coaching men’s rugby in Vancouver, to playing European Cup with Munster. I always found it infuriating, particularly when the play continued and the opposition got on the front foot.
I never understood it and I still don’t. If you must have a little tantrum, fine, just wait until the ball is dead before you do it. I’m not claiming the attitude Kinghorn displayed in this moment was present throughout the Lions team but it demonstrated some mental sloppiness, and sloppiness is a word that encapsulates the overall display pretty well.
The Lions performance was characterised by errors, from the six stolen lineouts, to the penalties at scrum time, to the litany of examples of poor handling from start to finish.
Granted, the conditions were atrocious – as evidenced by the near 40-minute break due to the threat of lightning – but who would we honestly expect to cope better with torrential rain? The squad picked from four corners of two wet and windy islands on the western edge of Europe, or the one representing one of the sunniest countries on the planet? The Aussies gave their guests a lesson in adapting to challenging conditions and the visitors had few answers of their own.
Now the tour has reached its conclusion and the Lions have emerged victorious, it’s a difficult one to look back and assess. I can’t speak for our friends across the Irish Sea, but this year’s iteration of the Lions concept did not captivate the Irish rugby community the way it usually does.
This was anticipated, given the difficulties the Wallabies have faced in recent years. The most exciting warm-up game was against Argentina in Dublin, with none of the rest requiring much more than a canter for the tourists to get the job done.
By the time the final whistle blew on the first test in Brisbane, questions about the merit of including Australia as an opponent at all had gathered a head of steam. But even the cynics among us must admit the series exploded into life a week later, in front of 90,000 people at a packed Melbourne Cricket Ground.
This had all the drama, excitement and unpredictability you expect and need from a Lions test, and the visitors overturning an 18-point deficit to snatch victory at the death and commit one of the great Lions robberies gave an unfulfilled public the sense of satisfaction it had desperately craved.
Sadly, the third test failed to replicate any of that excitement. A pedestrian victory for the Aussies did little to make the 2025 tour more memorable but it did cast this Lions team and their series win in a less flattering light. Given how much of the chat before and during the tour focused on achieving a whitewash, scraping to victory in the second test and being comprehensively beaten in the third feels like a bit of a disappointment.
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While the Wallabies gave a strong account of themselves and showed the potential they have to emerge from this challenging period, they are still, objectively speaking, the worst Australian side in recent history. Accordingly, they are the worst side the Lions have faced in recent history as well.
The Lions are only one part of this puzzle, however, and the importance of the tour for rugby in Australia cannot be overstated. Over 450,000 people attended the tour’s games in Australia – a record. This has overturned a significant deficit on Rugby Australia’s part and brought them $50m AUD to the good instead.
What this means for the future of the game in Australia remains to be seen but this financial injection, coupled with the genuine interest that appears to have been generated in the cities hosting the tests – despite both the AFL and NRL seasons being at their height – mean that from the perspective of rugby as a whole, the tour was a huge success.
From Munster’s point of view, it was a successful tour also. Having our sole representative and captain declared the player of the series means we put our stamp on things, and hopefully it’s a good omen for what lies ahead in the coming season.
