1 July 2025
Good morning G&GRs and welcome to another Tuesday. It’s the start of a new financial year but, more importantly, the Lions are here, and they’re here to play as the Force found on Saturday night. If you’re new to Green & Gold Rugby, welcome and we hope you enjoy it; if you’re returning, welcome back.
If you need a fast paced recap of Saturday’s Force v Lions match, have a look at Sully’s excellent match review here, and if you missed Bris’s Monday news, check it out here.
As always at this time of year there’s plenty of rugby news to digest, so we’ll get into it with the teams for the Reds v Lions game, which is on tomorrow night. We’ll check in on the performance of the Australian Under 20s team at the World Cup and see how the Wallaroos A side went on the weekend in Canberra, and do some forecasting of the potential teams for the two upcoming invitational matches. So, let’s get into it.
Reds v Lions
The Reds and the Lions have named their teams for Wednesday night’s match at Suncorp which sees captain Itoje returning for the Lions along with Bundee Aki in a team showing plenty of changes after they ran over the top of the Force on Saturday. Of course the Lions team looks strong, they’re all international players at the top of their game.
The Reds have named a strong side, obviously missing some of the key Wallabies players who you would expect will be in the game day squad to take on Fiji on Sunday in Newcastle. So the teams are:
The Reds have named 9 Wallabies in their squad and have gone with a 6-2 bench split to combat the dangerous Lions forward pack. Welcome to Aidan Ross, recently arrived from the Chiefs who will line up in his first start for the Reds and should provide some scrum stability.
There are a few Reds players who’ll be looking to make a statement in this one and it looks a cracking match. The Reds have shown some real grit in their defence throughout the year, and they’ll have to step it up if they are going to upset the Lions. I’m looking forward to seeing how the whole team goes, in particular players like Lachie Anderson and Joe Brial who finished the season strongly.
It’s been wet in Brisbane over the weekend, but it’s forecast to be clear and sunny for Wednesday so should be near perfect conditions for what could be a famous Reds victory.
In other Lions team news, scrumhalf Tomos Williams has been ruled out of the rest of the tour after injuring his hamstring late in the game against the Force. Bad news for Williams who looked sharp against the Force, we wish him well for a speedy recovery.
Australian Under 20s
The Australian Under 20s got smashed by the South Africans to the tune of 73-17 in their opening game at the World Cup in Italy. You can read a more detailed report from Nathan Williamson here, with South Africa racking up 11 tries to 9 different players, it really sounds like a dominant performance and the Aussies will have to put it behind them as they turn their attention to their next game against Scotland.
Out of interest, there were only five Reds players in the Under 20s team that took on South Africa; maybe there were too many Waratahs in the team, maybe the South Africans were just better on a hot day out. Anyway, good luck to the young men as they take on the Scots this weekend.
Wallaroos A team
Technically, it is the Australia A women’s team not the Wallaroos A team, but Wallaroos A team was easier to write and seemed catchier. The Wallaroos A team (you can use that Natho if you want) put in a solid shift against Manusina and ran away with it by 50-22 at Viking Park in Canberra.
The Aussies ran in 8 tries to 7 seven different players, with Manu’a Moleka (younger sister of Wallaroo Faitala Moleka) scoring a double. There was plenty of experience in the team that took the field with Arabella McKenzie and Piper Duck making their returns and Sevens stars Tia Hinds and Charlotte Caslick getting some game time.
A good win and some momentum for the squad as the Wallaroos head across the Tasman to take on the Black Ferns on 12 July before hosting Wales on 26 July and 1 August.
Lions Invitational matches
In some welcome news for Les Kiss and the AUNZ international team, David Havili. Shannon Frizell, Shaun Stevenson and Folau Fakatava have all been named to join the squad to take on the Lions on Saturday, 12 July in Adelaide. It’s an exciting start to the team list for this important match, and I suspect that the balance of the squad will take shape quickly as Kiss and his coaching team have less than two weeks to bring a team and game plan together to take on the Lions.
That’s a wrap.
As always, thanks for making it this far, and go the Reds this week.
Cheers
