There in the G battled two teams; impossible to think one of them was an eighth or even sixth best side. Cut, parry and thrust from end to end, whistle to whistle, time after time; ninety thousand enthralled.
We speak of the fineness of margins. A bounce here, a spill there, an inch high, a step slow; the cruelty of our oblong ball free on the field, angles adjudicated without a perfect view. In truth, the finer the margin, the more excruciating the pain of loss.
Melbourne has staged the two best matches of the 2025 British and Irish Lions tour of Australia thus far. We did not know who would win nor how. The second Test held the most jeopardy: the finest of margins.
These Lions may not be a great team, but they are unsentimental closers. Captain Maro Itoje and his coach Andy Farrell welcomed veteran big match operators like Owen Farrell, Blair Kinghorn, James Ryan, Ellis Genge and Will Stuart to their bench to quell any fear of late-game sloth.
In Brisbane, the visitors staked out a three-score lead and banked on the hosts not having the horses to run them down. All in all, the Wallabies only played ‘dominant’ rugby for about 10 minutes in Test one; about 20 minutes of parity. The Lions just needed a little over 40 to win; a margin of eight deceived because of how late the gap was 15.
The difference in preparation games was not marginal: both quality and quantity. For Melbourne, Joe Schmidt added big boppers Rob Valetini, Will Skelton, and Langi Gleeson, but the flyhalf cap gap was still 206-20 (with Ben Donaldson’s slightly larger share going unused).
The home team seemed to handle the vastness of the MCG en route to building a 23-5 lead in the first half.
Starter plays got to the third pass, as when at the end of the first quarter, from a simple scrum, Len Ikitau pulled back to Tom Lynagh using Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii as a block decoy, the young Red playmaker finding Harry Potter in a double wing move to Max Jorgensen, chipping into the 22, and with wide cleaners shunting bodies, and the referee seeing pictures the way the Wallabies wished him to see, James Slipper scored.
Adding points by three, then five by a rampant Jake Gordon, full of fire and menace, Valetini and Skelton gainlining through hitherto impenetrable Maro Itoje and Tom Curry, but also a 50-22 and an old school glideby by Tom Wright.
Jake Gordon of the Wallabies celebrates scoring a try during the second test of the series between Australia Wallabies and British & Irish Lions at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on July 26, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)
The Lions found a way to slow ride a 19-point lead to a comfortable win, but here the Wallabies’ 18 spot was not enough: not kicking for position and instead letting the Lions have just five minutes of dominance worth 12 points and a halftime edge too close for Aussie comfort.
Mismatches of their own making: Suaalii manning the outside centre zone without enough know-how, raw wings tentative on scramble (a nine at wing with a utility back unused), a drift defence which can shoot into lanes but rarely hits big or robs time.
Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii of the Wallabies makes a break during the second test of the series between Australia Wallabies and British & Irish Lions at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on July 26, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
But how good was it anyway!
After the confluence of Lyonnaise trauma with “no meetings in Japan, mate,” and the bad vibes of the Dave Rennie goodbye, a game which got out of control in Argentina, the ugly way Super Rugby departed Victoria, the internecine budget fights, and yet another Crusaders trophy; how good to see Wallabies rip the best of the Home Nations! Better even than one win at Twickenham. This was a side who was said to be too good to tour.
Aussie rugby at its best looks like a ricochet animated by pinball wizards and no stopping it: rugby pent up, a code forever under attack but full of the DNA of heydays gone by, of being the best and remembering it: Lynagh an embodiment thereof.
Yes, the Lions of MCG were even better than the Lions at Suncorp: five tries instead of three, more line breaks from fewer carries, keener red zone efficiency, and finishing with more caps than when they started, sharp poise and deep belief.
Fine margins governed this referee, like all our referees: order of elbows at scrum, ruck games by Curry, an obstacle on Gordon’s try, big Dan Sheehan’s latched dive, Stuart’s roll, and that contentious shoulder battle between riverboat gambler Carlo Tizzano – sidewinding and grasping but not yet lifting the ball – and Jac Morgan, the pride of his land, who cleaned in precisely the way coached by both sides but caught clavicle and shoulder blade, not head as Tizzano attempted to sell (instead of jumping up and cornerflagging): a close call.
To fixate on that tough one is to lose the magnificence of the occasion. On this evidence, the Wallabies can go toe to toe with the best sides in the world: do it a lot more often and they will find a way to win.
This was one of the finest displays of the decade by an Australian team.
