Any British and Irish Lions and Australia players in need of inspiration in the final moments before kick off in Saturday’s second Test need only glance up at the wall in front of them. While the dressing rooms of one of the world’s great sporting colosseums will be bedecked in the iconography of both sides as they make the Melbourne Cricket Ground their temporary home, still adorning each will be the carved wooden honours boards that list the immortal achievements of the many cricketing greats who have captured this cathedral and made it their own.
From Grimmett and O’Reilly through the Chappell brothers to Warne and McGrath, the greats have made an indelible mark on this sacred temple of Australian sport. For the Wallabies, they will hope to make their own imprint with victory a must. At 1-0 down, it is do or die for the home side as they bid to avoid being the first of the three southern hemisphere nations to be conquered in successive series by the touring Lions.
Perhaps Joe Schmidt and his side can take something from a certain DG Bradman, commemorated with statues inside and out of a venue at which he averaged a mere 128.53. The antics of Adelaide are those best remembered from the famous Bodyline Ashes of 1932-33, but it was in Melbourne where Australia squared the series having been beaten and beaten up by England in Sydney. A returning Don, who had missed the opening game due to a contractual dispute, tonned up in the second innings after a golden duck in the first with typical brilliance and belligerence.
Battered and bruised by the Lions in the opening encounter of this series, now the Wallabies hope to do some damage of their own. One might have foreseen a sluggish start from a side in only their second outing of the year, but few forecast the passivity with which Australia played. “We don’t want to be nice, and we don’t want to be submissive,” head coach Schmidt stressed on Thursday. “I just think that they played on the edge really well [last week], they got in amongst us, sometimes just beside us, which made it very hard to play.
“We’re hopeful that we will be able to take that to them this week and keep them on the back foot a little bit more.”
It helps, of course, to have a full complement of bruisers for what is shaping up to be a proper Melbourne melee on a wet night. Full fitness may still evade Rob Valetini and Will Skelton but the pair certainly give a more fearsome look to a Wallabies team short of weapons of destruction a week ago. The artillery each provides is clear, with Valetini’s tireless carrying and Skelton’s unique strengths such vital parts of the side that Schmidt is building. “He is an unusually large human being,” Lions lock Ollie Chessum said of his opposite number Skelton, who stands at 6ft 7in tall and 145kg. “I think he’s going to bring the physical edge that we expect to see from the Wallabies this weekend.”
The significance of playing at the MCG is not lost on the Lions, who intend to embrace the occasion and soak up the atmosphere. A series win is well within reach for a team that feels that, even in a brilliant 42 minutes in which they seized a match-winning lead, they did not hit the heights of which they are capable in the first Test. Throughout this tour, the talk has been of writing their own history; the MCG would be an apt place to do it.
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“They’re going to draw on every emotional aspect of this game that they can,” Chessum said. “They are 1-0 down in the series but they are at the MCG, in front of their fans, on their home soil with the series on the line. We know they’re going to throw the kitchen sink at us.
“We said right from the start that we want to lay down a marker and be the best Lions team there has ever been. If we are to do that, we’ve got to make ourselves part of that history and do the job at the weekend. This is everything that international rugby is all about. Physicality goes up through the roof, the intensity goes up through the roof, the speed of the game goes up through the roof – and you have to walk towards it because if you don’t you’ll get found out pretty quickly.”
The disruption caused by Garry Ringrose’s courageous and correct withdrawal has been limited, it is claimed, by a squad tighter than those on past tours. It is at this point on a trip, with the last midweek game over and selection pecking orders becoming clear, that a group can fracture or fray – but all in Lions camp are clear that the bonds of the class of 2025 are strong. Perhaps that could be best seen in Ellis Genge and Finn Russell leaving their seats in the stands to comfort temporary tourist Darcy Graham after an injury in the win over the First Nations & Pasifika XV; in their different ways, both the England prop and Scotland fly half have been central leaders over the last few weeks.
As, increasingly, has been Owen Farrell, whose presence in the matchday 23 in Melbourne comes as little surprise to most in rugby. The assumption always was that the 33-year-old would have some Test involvement once he accepted the call-up from his father, and a standard-driver will hope to ensure there is no drop off once he and the rest of the replacements are utilised.
Melbourne has been full of Lions supporters this week, perhaps even more red-tinted than Brisbane a week ago with plenty of travelling fans ticking off Tests two and three. They will not much mind, one would guess, if next week’s game becomes something of a dead rubber. Such talk, though, is premature.
“When you wear this jersey and represent the Lions you know it comes with huge honour and a sense of responsibility, and we know we are not playing a pub team,” captain Maro Itoje underscored. “The Wallabies are a proper team, I played them last year in the autumn and we lost to them when we were supposed to win. They are a team that can punish you if you don’t approach the game properly.”
