Hugely disappointing loss for Wallabies fans. Congratulations on your first win, Lions. Let’s take a look at the statistics from the match to see what happened on the pitch.
Attack
As a team the Wallabies were very effective at getting over the gain line, crossing over on 77.42 per cent of carries as opposed to the Lions on 71.70 per cent of carries. This figure could explain why the Wallabies were able to achieve 452 metres run to the Lions’ 310, both teams having carried the pill 47 times each. While the Wallabies made more metres the Lions were able to beat more defenders, to the tune of 16 defenders beaten.
The Wallabies also seemed to be playing a slightly higher-risk strategy than the Lions, going for 12 offloads to the Lions’ three. They also conceded far more turnovers than the Lions, 14 to three. Several of these turnovers came from handling issues in contact (Horwill was guilty of this four times) before there was even an opportunity to offload. Our props seem to look a little shocked when they break the line! As a final point the Lions were able to hold onto the ball for much longer periods of time, achieving 23 phases at one point. The Wallabies maxed out at seven phases.
