Welcome to Australia. It’s games like this that make Lions tours. Roared on by an excitable, mostly hostile capacity full-house in an atmospheric arena, the home side daringly threw the kitchen sink at the tourists with a breathless, high risk, high tempo, approach from the first whistle which not even the rain from 25 minutes onwards could dampen.
There was plenty of claret, stoppages and injuries as the medics worked overtime. At times the Lions were distinctly uncomfortable. And Warren Gatland loved it.
“It was kind of like old tours when teams went on tour for a long time, and played provincial teams and they just threw everything at them for the first 20 or 30 minutes and having to soak up a bit of pressure,” reflected the Lions head coach yesterday morning. “That was what was brilliant about the game, what all of us have missed about old traditional touring, teams going away and having to face a barrage for that first period of matches.”
The experience and the lessons learned, even if they never encounter anything quite like Quade Cooper and the Lion Tamers again – the enigmatic one was in vintage, offloading, side-stepping, on-the-gainline Carlos Spencer mode – ought to be considerable. Gatland assuredly had one ill-advised Stuart Hogg counterattack in mind when admitting they could have played more territory.
Paul O'Connell also revealed that he came onto the pitch with specific instructions that there was no need to take quick taps, least of all when the Lions' scrum was so dominant. But Gatland extolled the team's "excellent" game management and the way his callow backline came through the test.
Just babies
With an average age of 23, only Tommy Bowe had previous Lions' form. "The backline out there last night was just babies," said Gatland. "They were really, really young, so for them to come through at 20/21/22 years old with not a huge amount of international experience; I thought they did brilliantly well. I was really proud of that performance last night."
He waxed most lyrically about Ben Youngs, whose opportunist try and accurate box kicking helped them turn around 16-7 ahead despite having just 37 per cent possession and thereafter largely control the game. “There’s a subtlety Ben brings to the game. He’s also a different type of player to Mike Phillips and Conor Murray. He’s confident in his own ability, takes the line on and offers a different threat to the other two . . .”
Ultimately, perhaps the most salient lesson was how the Lions won this in the trenches, namely their set-piece superiority, nicking five of 15 Reds’ throws, their scrambling defence and Owen Farrell’s unerring boot. In this, the rains assuredly helped them.
“I thought that was the victory in the game,” agreed Gatland. “If you look at the way the Reds played, tactically maybe Australia will do the same thing, and kept the ball in the park, we only had about four (actually six) line outs. It was like watching Wales play against other teams. I thought our scrum was excellent, the line out very good defensively.”
That said, Gatland didn’t expect the Wallabies to be so wild and loose – and how could they be given Robbie Deans will not accommodate Cooper? “I don’t think Australia will be quite so carefree. I think they will be a little bit more structured.”
In truth, the Reds created far more. Aside from Luke Morahan’s wondrous first-half solo try – the tour might not witness a better one – hiding Cooper at the back defensively also gives scope to his counterattacking, and it was his quick throw which led to impressive 20-year-old scrum-half Nick Frisby releasing Rod Davies and then taking the return pass to make it a one-score game. Had Cooper landed a kickable first-half penalty or Mike Harris the latter conversion, it could have been a very squeaky endgame.
Although Farrell also ran well and made four line breaks, there wasn't much creativity in the 10-12-13 axis until Bowe switched to outside centre, with the Lions matching the Reds' long-range attack chiefly by dint of the opportunism of their outside backs, and especially Bowe and George North.
Best defences
Against one of the two best defences in Super Rugby, there was also a lack of ballast up front. Even Mako Vunipola, though he put in another nine tackles and has been heroic given the loose-head woes, didn't have the same strength in his carries and after more than two-and-a-half games. Richie Gray, Geoff Parling and Dan Lydiate also tackled well with Parling the lineout destroyer in chief, but made little inroads with ball in hand.
The well-being of their tour skipper Sam Warburton remains crucial for the Lions. Despite sucking diesel from a long way out, to his credit he dug deep and made it past the 70 metre mark, but with more game time under his belt he mightn’t have been handed off so readily by Morahan, and he’d have finished off the searing touchline break by North before half-time.
Even so, Warburton was just about the pick of the forwards as a carrier, ahead of Toby Faletau, but a strong 80 minute outing in the squad's most competitive area, namely the back-row, against the Waratahs next week would help the captain.
Scoring sequence: 14 mins Farrell pen 0-3; 18 Morahan try, Cooper con 7-3; 23 Farrell pen 7-6; 34 Ben Youngs try, Farrell con 7-13; 40 (+3 mins) Farrell pen 7-16); (half-time 7-16); 51 Farrell pen 7-19; 64 Frisby try 12-19; 77 mins Farrell pen 12-22.
QUEENSLAND REDS: B Lucas; R Davies, Ben Tapuai, A Fainga'a, L Morahan; Q Cooper, N Frisby; B Daley, J Hanson, G Holmes, A Wallace-Harrison, E O'Donoghue, E Quirk, B Robinson, J Schatz. Replacements: R Samo for O'Donoghue (12-18min) and for Wallace-Harrison (54 mins), A Anae for Daley (23 mins), J Owen for Holmes (35-40 and 69 mins), D Shipperley for Morahan (44 mins), M Harris for Fainga'a (53 mins), J Butler for Robinson (54 mins), J Lance for Frisby (64 mins), Frisby for Lucas (70 mins), S Denny for Hanson (78 mins).
LIONS: S Hogg (Scot); A Cuthbert (Wal), M Tuilagi (Eng), J Davies (Wal), T Bowe (Ire), O Farrell (Eng), B Youngs (Eng); M Vunipola (Eng), T Youngs (Eng), M Stevens (Eng), R Gray (Scot), G Parling (Eng), D Lydiate (Wal), S Warburton (Wales, capt), T Faletau (Wal). Replacements: G North (Wal) for Tuilagi (20 mins), J Sexton (Ire) for Bowe (46 mins), R Hibbard (Wal) for T Youngs, D Cole (Eng) for Vunoipola, A Jones (Wal) for Stevens, P O'Connell (Ire) for Gray (all 65 mins), J Tipuric (Wal) for Warburton (74 mins). Not used: C Murray (Ire),
Referee: Jerome Garces (France).
