Brace yourselves, Wallabies fans, or close the window and move on with your days, for you surely understand what’s coming the way of your team from the northern media types after the first Test loss to the British and Irish Lions in Brisbane.
The UK media reaction can be summed up as a mix of brutal truths tinged with sadness – a disappointment that after a 12 year wait the Wallabies have proven, as suspected, less than a challenge for the best of the UK and Ireland.
The margin of 27-19 – just eight points at the end – was fooling no one. Oh yes, even the word ‘un-Australian’ was trotted out to describe the lack of fight from the men in gold.
Wallabies captain Harry Wilson copped it for kicking the ball dead to end the game, with former World Cup winning coach Clive Woodward incensed by this surrender.
“What summed up the game for me was with the clock in the red and with the Lions winning 27-19, the Australian captain Harry Wilson kicked the ball out to end the game,” Woodward wrote in the Daily Mail.
“Talk about a losing mentality. For me, it is the last play of the game so why not have a mentality to try and score as this could be the situation in seven days’ time, only closer? Why not rehearse this scenario? Why would any player, especially the captain, want to end the game? That in so many ways reflects the current state of Australian rugby which is clearly not in a great position.”
Woodward had wondered if Australia would struggle to compete while missing Rob Valetini and Will Skelton through injuries – and “they did so badly”.
He added the game was “not great for the concept of the Lions as a whole. A Lions Test series should be close and full of jeopardy. I’ve got my concerns whether that is going to be the case this time. That is not the fault of the Lions. They can only beat their opposition and that’s what they’ve done so far. But it does raise questions over Australian rugby as a whole.”
Will Greenwood, writing in The UK Telegraph, wrote: “The scoreline in Brisbane read as an eight-point victory to the Lions but, make no mistake, this was a battering. The match might have felt a bit odd and – in the second half especially – a bit flat but at no point did I think that the Lions would lose that match.
“The tourists might have missed a few opportunities, and James Lowe will not want to watch back that butchered overlap, but they also created so many.
“The Lions kept Australia at arm’s length throughout the whole match; if the Wallabies had scored again, so would the Lions. It was like a boxing match where one fighter knew they had it wrapped up after six rounds, just needing to keep their opponent six feet away for the rest of it before the rematch next week. Maybe, at times, it was just a splash of composure which was lacking.
“But a Lion would kill a wallaby in the wild and on the Brisbane turf it was a similar tale at the gainline. Finn Russell was majestic but he will be saying a huge “thank you” to the Lions’ pack, as we all were. They absolutely buried the Wallabies up front. Russell and his Scottish midfield were magic but they had it on a plate.
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – JULY 19: Tate McDermott of the Wallabies feeds the scrum during game one of the series between Australia Wallabies and British & Irish Lions at Suncorp Stadium on July 19, 2025 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
“Australia were simply destroyed on the gainline. Smashed. And when you’re going round the corner and being sent back from whence you came, there is very little that a cerebral coach like Schmidt can do. That is my worry for them. How do you suddenly turn that physical disparity around? They have to find a way. If Will Skelton or Rob Valetini are fit, they simply have to start. Not starting Angus Bell was a mistake, too. I couldn’t believe that. Australia do not have many World XV contenders but the loosehead is one.”
Greenwood’s Telegraph colleague Oliver Brown fired up the thesaurus. Few writers (and we’ve seen his work on the Ashes) like taking a big stick to Aussies as Brown and he was swinging wildly.
“The sound here in Brisbane was not of rage or rancour, merely one of bleak, sullen resignation. On a galling evening for the Wallabies, this stadium, traditionally such a cauldron for the hosts, felt more like a mausoleum, with home fans’ despair at their team’s inadequacies so all-engulfing that the hype man had to plead with them to “make some noise”, ” wrote Brown.
“After a 12-year wait for their players to collide with the British and Irish Lions once more, they had dared to expect some snarl and defiance befitting the occasion. But instead they witnessed a glaring mismatch, with the lack of cohesion on the pitch so painful that rare incursions into the tourists’ 22 were greeted with bitterly ironic cheers.
“The series opener would soon curdle, though, into a grisly reckoning for Australia, whose status as the sixth-best team in the world looked flattering in the face of the Lions’ bombardment.”
Australia’s late flourish which narrowed the margin was too late. “Australia were tepid, toothless, their only highlight coming courtesy of an inspired individual flourish from Max Jorgensen, stripping the ball from Hugo Keenan for a try against the run of play.
“Australia were a pale imitation of the great Wallabies sides… Joe Schmidt’s side will require a miracle to achieve anything comparable. For large swathes of this game their performance was, quite simply, un-Australian, bereft of ferocity or any apparent belief they could win.
Finn Russell of British & Irish Lions with Tom Lynagh of Australia after the first test match between Australia and the British & Irish Lions at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
“It was not just their lack of ingenuity or tendency to kick far too often in an abject first half, but their actions at the end, when they booted the ball out of play as if congratulating themselves on a bonus-point loss. How odd, too, to see them mingling happily with the Lions at the final whistle, simply relieved that they had not suffered a humiliation. So much for the notion of a defeat, any defeat, eating away at the true Australian’s soul.”
Chris Jones, on the BBC, was also left feeling cheated by the Wallabies inadequacies.
“It was a flat atmosphere, a subdued Suncorp and for a lot of this game it did not feel like a Lions Test match, sadly. Lions games are normally on a knife edge, the Wallabies were undercooked but it was only in the second half that Australia looked near a top side because for large periods it was a complete and utter mismatch,” Jones said.
“The noises out of Australian rugby were not super confident, but their replacements made a big impact, they scored the last try, they have some big names to come back but you felt when the Lions got the ball they could have scored but for their profligacy.
“It is surreal for the Lions to win a Test match away from home and for there not to be absolute jubilation and bedlam. This Lions team will feel they have more gears to go through, and it could have been a lot worse but there was plenty of brilliant stuff from the Lions.”
Max Jorgensen of the Wallabies breaks to score a try during game one of the series between Australia Wallabies and British & Irish Lions at Suncorp Stadium on July 19, 2025 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Owen Slot summed it up succinctly in The Times: “Was ever a stadium so quiet at the end? It feels like we knew after 10 minutes who was going to win and spent the next 70 waiting to have that confirmed.”
In the Guardian, Gerard Meagher higlighted the backrow battle – or lack thereof – as the reason the Lions dominated.
“These Wallabies are not good enough to compete with the Lions in this mood and nowhere was that more obvious than in the back row,” Meagher wrote.
“For all that [Tom] Curry performed like a whirling dervish, he had Tadhg Beirne, who finished as the match’s top tackler, alongside him making trademark turnovers, pinching lineouts and again justifying his selection. It was Beirne who made the turnover after Curry had rattled [James] Slipper so soon after the opening whistle. They were some double act throughout.”
In the Daily Mail, Chris Foy praised Curry, revealing the Englishman’s sullen post-match interview, seemingly in response to the media’s kind words for his teammate Jac Morgan, who was left out.
“Tom Curry was driven by a mood of simmering defiance to inspire the Lions to victory, as England’s back-row hit man justified his inclusion in the starting XV in emphatic fashion,” wrote Foy.
“The 27-year-old flanker lived up to his billing as a ‘machine’ by head coach Andy Farrell, with a series of big shots in defence, relentless work-rate and commitment, a close-range try and an assist. He touched down just before half-time, then after the break gave a demonstration of his all-court class, juggling the ball to steal an over-thrown lineout then off-loading, before running hard to be in position to deliver the perfectly-timed, decisive pass to send Dan Sheehan over in the corner.
Sione Tuipulotu of British & Irish Lions, right, celebrates with teammate Tommy Freeman, 14, after scoring their side’s first try during the first test match between Australia and the British & Irish Lions at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
“Having smashed himself to a near standstill in the cause, Curry had every right to be elated but he was in a tetchy mood as he gave a post-match interview. It became apparent that within the Lions squad, it was perceived that he had been harshly criticised in the build-up to this series opener — and he did little to hide his irritation.”
In all the disappointment aimed at the Wallabies, there was one columnist swimming against the tide, and no prizes for guessing who.
The inimitable Stephen Jones, writing in The Times, was perhaps (Barnaby Joyce-style), watching a different game.
“The Lions … won a match of utterly compelling sport with a superb performance in the first half, and, frankly, the most dogged defence in the second, after Australia came at them in fiery mood,” wrote Jones.
“There were few celebrations in the red jerseys when the final whistle blew, simply because the British & Irish Lions players were exhausted, and they realised they had been in a fantastic contest.
“Those who declared confidently that the Wallabies would be a really poor side, that they would crumble in the face of the red jersey, were confounded utterly. The second half would have given the Australians every confidence that they can turn things round.”
The Roarhttps://https://ift.tt/wyqvIsD View: ‘Talk about a losing mentality’ – Skipper slammed after ‘grisly reckoning’ for ‘un-Australian’ Wallabies
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