Australia 22-12 Lions: Wallabies win should end doubts about future tours

In the first Test, the Lions could afford to be sloppy in the final half hour, such was their advantage. Australia were then welcomingly competitive in the second Test, even in defeat. Victory to set up a decider in Sydney would have been ideal but forcing the Lions to find a last-minute winner through Hugo Keenan? That drama, that sense of jeopardy was exactly what this tour needed.

Australia built on those foundations, managing the horrendous conditions in Sydney better than the Lions, with Will Skelton and Tom Hooper immense in the pack and Nic White running the show from scrum-half in his final appearance. The fears of a 3-0 whitewash were ruined and in the process, the suggestion that perhaps the Lions should take the “Sea of Red” away from Australia in the future, to face a more competitive opponent, lost steam.

Disrupting the rotation of tours, a system which has been in place for the Lions since 1989, would be an extreme move. The Lions coach Andy Farrell has given future tours to Australia his full backing.

“It would be tragic for us not to tour here. We’ve had a blast. To me it’s insulting to talk about it in that kind of way,” said Farrell. “Every single team, country, province, has their ups and downs but Australia – the sporting nation that they are – are always going to come back. They’re going to be a force to be reckoned with, 100%, with all their experiences, come the World Cup [in Australia] in 2027.”

Hopefully Farrell is correct about the Wallabies on the field but the main concerns lie off it. This tour has underlined just how low rugby union sits in the Australian sporting pecking order, struggling for space in the newspapers behind Aussie rules, rugby league and cricket, with union’s revenue from television rights paling in comparison. Five professional franchises were reduced to four with the loss of the Melbourne Rebels last year. A production line of promising schoolboy talent is continuously lured away by the bigger money on offer in other codes.

Facing the Super Rugby franchises without their Wallaby internationals in the warm-up fixtures meant the Lions really ran into trouble only when they began beating themselves through poor execution, as was the case in the game against the Waratahs. Only the First Nations and Pasifika XV provided the kind of physical, stress-testing challenge the Lions would have hoped for prior to the Test series, and even that was against a clear midweek selection rather than the Lions’ strongest side.

The depth in New Zealand and South Africa by comparison is so strong that when the Lions have toured there recently, the warm-up fixtures have rarely felt like automatic wins. On the most recent Lions tour not hindered by Covid restrictions, to New Zealand in 2017, the Lions lost to the Blues and Highlanders and drew with the Hurricanes. In an ideal world, every tour match would provide a rigorous examination.

Before the Lions had set foot in Australia minds began to wander, imagining what a tour might look like if the Lions went elsewhere. To France or Argentina, for example. Admittedly, calling a hypothetical schedule of matches travelling around France a “tour” feels a bit of a stretch. More of an exaggerated hop.

Part of the appeal of the Lions has been seeing whether a group of unfamiliar teammates bonded together can triumph far away from home. Tour managers calling up a replacement and asking if they can be in Paris by the afternoon does not have the same sense of adventure. Maro Itoje, the Lions captain, alluded to that. “Part of me is keen for it to continue to rotate among the three countries it [currently] does. It wouldn’t feel the same if we took a short-haul flight. It needs a long‑haul flight!”

Although, imagine the itinerary. The Lions taking on Toulouse, La Rochelle and Bordeaux-Begles, unbelievable squads even without their French internationals. There would be no seats left at the Stade de France for the Tests. In all likelihood, if the Lions do face France in the future it will be as a warm-up fixture before venturing further afield. Discussions have been gathering pace.

The biggest threat to Australia as a Lions destination may in fact be Argentina, who have now faced the Lions twice in the professional era in warm-up fixtures, bagging a 25-25 draw in 2005 – they would have won had it not been for a late Jonny Wilkinson penalty – before a deserved victory back in June defeating the Lions in Dublin.

The Lions have not been to Argentina since 1936, when Bernard Gadney’s side embarked on an 11-match tour and won every game, including a 23-0 victory over Argentina in the only Test. Given how much England’s players and supporters have enjoyed tours to Argentina in recent years, a Lions trip would surely be a success. After the success of the Wallabies hosting the Lions at the MCG, how about a Test in Buenos Aires at River Plate’s Estadio Monumental or in the cauldron that is La Bombonera, the home of Boca Juniors? Some prospect.

The odds of all this happening now feel slim after how well the Wallabies have played. Taking Australia out of the Lions rotation would also inflict considerable financial damage. Rugby Australia is forecasting a record surplus for 2025, having lost £18 million last year following their disastrous group-stage exit from the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

Australians and non-Australians alike will be hoping that rugby union is thriving when the Lions return in 2037. What the Wallabies of today have done with their efforts in Melbourne and now Sydney is to generate a sense of optimism when many had written them off, making those hypothetical conversations around where the Lions could tour instead feel a little fanciful.

Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty