For those of you who have been hiding behind the sofa since Kurtley Beale stepped up to take that sure-fire penalty against the Lions last Saturday: it’s okay to come out. The Lions won, but Beale, the fullback who first joined up with the Wallabies as a prodigious 17-year-old whippersnapper, could make or break this series for his country.
It’s fortunate for Beale that his skills in attack are as exceptional as they are, because you would be hard-pressed to find an international fullback who is as tackle-shy as the 24-year-old Western Sydneysider. Last Saturday, he did a good impression of what Malcolm Tucker called “a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra”. Beale’s open door policy in defence was fractionally forgivable when it was gigantic George North running at him, but one should at least make it look like they’re making an effort to put in a hit.
Such defensive inadequacies in the Wallabies backline bode well for the return of towering Tommy Bowe on the wing for the Lions. Given the breaks, the Ulsterman with the hyena grin could tear up the turf at Melbourne’s Docklands – and Beale for one will be unable to stop him. The man the Lions will perhaps be most wary of, given their prior knowledge of James O’Connor and Beale, is Israel Folau. Having scored twice on his debut last week (he celebrated one by throwing the ball at Leigh Halfpenny), he will feel he has this union malarkey sussed.
Ben Youngs, replacing Mike Phillips, cuts a confident figure at scrum-half for the Lions, and such changes (the introduction of Dan Lydiate in the back row -though Tom Croft has reason to feel aggrieved- and Geoff Parling at lock in place of Paul O’Connell) are enough to give Robbie Deans pause for thought. Just when he thought he’d figured out how to disrupt the Lions, Warren Gatland’s team shifts subtly. A big talking point has been Mako Vunipola, starting at loosehead, who has his critics to silence in the scrummaging department (a relatively new affront levelled at the former West Mon boy).
The elephant in the room is how the Wallabies could have won fairly convincingly had they converted at least a couple of their penalty kicks. Are the Lions losing sleep over this? Absolutely not. Certainly not players such as George North, who announced himself as rugby’s newest superstar with one of the great international tries, or Paul O’Connell, whose ballistic efforts in victory will give him a semblance of succour now that he is ruled out with a broken arm.
All of which means the Lions can ill-afford to believe O’Connor or Beale will forget their kicking boots this weekend. The lip service they have paid to killing off the Wallabies in this second test is fine, but they need to back that up with serious fire power from the outset. Christian Leali’ifano and Adam Ashley-Cooper will hope for more than a minute in the midfield together, unlike last weekend, and while most of us familiar with the Wallabies know all about AAC, the former has been a creative force in the Brumbies’ best Super Rugby season in nine years.
There are Lions fans who are unprepared to admit that British and Irish rugby is on the cusp of a new dawn. To do so would be to second-guess tomorrow’s result in Melbourne. Perhaps this is because the Aussies can still turn it around, as they did 12 years ago in this very same city. The onus is very much on the Lions back row of Cpt. Sam Warburton, Jamie Heaslip and Dan Lydiate to choke the life out of Australia.
To the victor the spoils.
Side note: Is it just me, or is it an unlikely coincidence that so many British and Irish internationals not selected for the Lions just happen to be holidaying out in Australia? Irish prop Tom Court seems to have benefited from such serendipity; less so Wales prop Craig Mitchell, who’s just been arrested for assault in a Brisbane bar.
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Melbourne gathers strength as she goes. Whether this delightfully trendy city’s motto is applicable to the Lions or the Wallabies during this 2013 series is yet to be seen, but one thing is certain: British and Irish fans visiting the Victorian capital are in for a rare treat.
For those of us who spent too much time in front of the box as teenagers, some televisual favourites of yesteryear –from twentysomething drama ‘The Secret Life of Us’ to ‘Neighbours’ (back when it was good, and not on Channel 5)– are popular Melbourne exports. The underrated comedy masterpiece ‘Summer Heights High’ was also filmed in and around the city, as is the cult favourite ‘Underbelly’, which tells of Melbourne’s gangland wars throughout the years.
Melbourne can also lay claim –thought it might not wish to do so out loud– to Mark “Chopper” Read, the braggadocio, larger-than-life underworld criminal immortalised by Eric Bana (himself an AFL-loving Melburnian) in the titular ‘Chopper’. I once sat on a flight from Melbourne to Heathrow with the real-life Chopper’s chatty ex-girlfriend: I can safely say she was the most interesting single-serving friend I’ve ever had. As a social worker, she also had some terrifying tales to tell about ‘Ice’, a drug which she said was plaguing the city. Like I said: interesting.
Melbourne, you could say, is the sporting capital of the world. Walk down to the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct and you’ll find an athletic cluster of stadia along the Yarra River which is testament to the city’s sporting roots. The retractable roofs of the Millennium Stadium and Wimbledon (coming soon) are impressive until you consider that this relatively small area of land has three of them.
Rugby union’s Melbourne Rebels, 35-0 losers to the Lions this week, are overshadowed by their league brethren, Melbourne Storm, who in turn are in thrall to the crowds drawn to the Aussie Rules sides (100,016 rocked up at the MCG to watch Collingwood take on St Kilda in the 2010 Grand Final). To give you an idea of how Aussie Rules-orientated Melbourne is, the competition was originally called the Victorian Football League.
However, the city’s hierarchy of sport is beside the point. Melbourne appreciates and celebrates in equal measure the glories of athletic competition. Should tomorrow’s test match between the Lions and the Wallabies be anything as dramatic as last week’s, this city on the Yarra will have another tale to add to its rich history.
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THE STOMPING GROUND
In Australia, the words ‘stomped’ and ‘bashed’ are used as official terms for assault. See for instance, “Sydney man bashed” or, more pertinently, “James Horwill cleared of stomping on Alun Wyn Jones’s head” – a stomp which meant the Welsh lock had to have stitches around the eye area.
It might just be me, but ‘stomped’ sounds like something a heavyfooted toddler would do when destroying a sandcastle, rather than what the 116kg Australian captain Horwill appeared to do to Wyn Jones’s bonce. ‘Bashed’, on the other hand, brings to mind the words that showed up on the screen during the 1960s Batman TV series when, as opposed to a more realistic meaty crunching noise, the Caped Crusader would beat people up with a playful ‘BAP!’ or ‘SPLONK!’.
It should be remembered that Horwill himself has experienced his fair share of damage to the eye area. Just look at what happened to him when a kindly French prop took a swing at him during an international match in 2008.
Never fear, this isn’t a section dedicated to the injustices that have befallen the Lions down the years (there’s not enough room for those), rather a celebration of Australian terminology. Another joyful example: to be ‘filthy’ about something is to be furious, as when Wallabies prop Ben Alexander said this week: “Graham Rowntree will be filthy about [the Lions forwards finished the match] and he will be working them hard this week.”
If the Lions’ hard work pays off tomorrow, the only thing filthy Down Under will be a nation of Aussies whose national rugby side has experienced a bashing at the hands of Britain and Ireland’s finest.
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The debate around the Horwill Stomp has been raging on. First the ARU cleared him of any wrongdoing -though video evidence shows quite the opposite- and now the IRB have quite rightly called it in; though somewhat pointlessly, given that they’re allowing him to play in the crucial second test. For the second week running, we’ll leave the last word to Brian Moore who, as both a solicitor and renowned firebrand on the field, has more grasp of this whole judiciary situation than most of us – and is ever so eloquent with it…
The Rugby City 