By Aidan Leo
On Saturday, July 5, the British & Irish Lions defeated the New South Wales Waratahs 21–10, despite an admirable effort from the hosts.
The Lions have struggled in first halves throughout the tour, often relying on their bench strength to take control late in the game.
The familiar pattern continued — only this time, the Lions’ struggles persisted throughout the second half.
Farrell’s take
Head coach Andy Farrell admitted his side left plenty of points out on the field against the Waratahs.
“I’m satisfied with the win, you have to celebrate every win. But with the amount of territory and possession we had, to come away with so many dropped balls and turnovers, to say we left a few out there is an understatement,” Farrell told Sky Sports.
“We didn’t come out of the blocks hard enough. We need to address that and we need to address our exits after scoring tries and be more clinical there.
“But this was a different type of game, it’s good for us, they played hard at the breakdown, with good line-speed so there were some good learnings for us along the way.”
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Captain’s view
Stand-in Lions captain Tadhg Beirne was more reserved in his optimism than Farrell, suggesting the team expected more from their performance and that it wasn’t the step forward they had hoped for.
“It probably wasn’t the step forward we were looking for. It was quite scrappy at times,” he said.
“The ball was slippy out there and we didn’t hold on to it and we lacked that cohesiveness we were looking for.
“That’s what we’ll be looking to improve on but we certainly took a step up in terms of our scrum and our lineout which was a great part of our game tonight.
“But overall, I can imagine we’ll be a bit frustrated with not being as clinical as we could’ve been.”
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Overall takeaways
Farrell will be pleased on two fronts. First, he may have found his answer at outside centre for the Test matches against the Wallabies in Scotland’s Huw Jones.
Second, he’ll be pleased that one of the Australian franchises matched his side’s intensity for the full 80 minutes. That will give him the chance to scrutinize his team’s hit-and-miss performance with a fine-toothed comb.
However, there are concerns.
The tight five was good, but not as outstanding as he would have expected in this game.
In the back row, after young star Henry Pollock’s late withdrawal due to a tight calf, Beirne struggled at six—just as Tom Curry had in previous games.
That opens up plenty of question marks regarding that position.
Similarly, fly-half Fin Smith, who was the standout off the bench against the Reds, struggled to find his footing and control the game’s momentum.
Scrum-half Alex Mitchell was solid but didn’t do enough to challenge Jamison Gibson-Park for the likely Test starting spot.
Additionally, Hugo Keenan and Blair Kinghorn, who are the Lions’ primary full-back options, struggled to make an impression on both sides of the ball.
Keenan is coming off of sickness though, so that may have taken its toll.
Additionally, Lions’ primary full-back options Hugo Keenan and Blair Kinghorn struggled to make an impact on both attack and defense.
Keenan, recovering from illness, may have still been compromised.
Overall, Farrell will have learned a lot from his side’s shaky performance, especially about backing the players who didn’t feature in this game—in the upcoming fixture against the Brumbies, which will set the stage for the first Test against the Wallabies
The Lions square off with the Brumbies in Canberra on Wednesday, July 9.
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