It’s a wet night in Melbourne for the second test. Australia need to win this to keep the series alive after they looked off the pace last week. Can they turn it around this week, or will the visitors win the series?
The Match
What a difference a week made, suddenly the Wallabies looked like a complete team able to compete with the Lions in physicality and skill. Referee Andrea Piardi was much stricter at the breakdown, and that suited Australia more than the Lions.
The Lions gave away two early penalties and Australia took full advantage, leading 6-0. Dan Sheehan grabbed five points back on the quarter-hour mark, diving over the Wallaby defenders to score off a tap move.
A question to the referees out there: at a penalty, do the tapee and his support runners need to be behind the ball before the ball is tapped?
After that try, Australia enjoyed a period of dominance. 22 minutes in, James Slipper barged over to score. After multiple warnings, the ref had had enough and sin binned Tommy Freeman for his part in defending the line before the try. His time in the bin wasn’t good for the Lions with two backline tries to the Wallabies, the first to Jake Gordon who sniped off the side of the ruck to score beside the post. The second was a beautiful play started by Jorgensen who made ground after taking the kick off, then a sweeping back line move where Sua’ali’i stepped past Bundee Aki, who’s not the best at turning around, to put Tom Wright into space for the try.
The Lions were back to 15 players and started working their way back into the match. Firstly with Tom Curry who stepped inside Jake Gordon who was sprinting across in cover. And then to Huw Jones, who carried two Australian defenders over to score. And that was it for half time with the Wallabies leading 23-17.
The Wallabies started the second half with a new front row and Gleeson on for Valetini at blindside flanker. The Wallabies managed to not give away points early in the second half, as they have done lately. And actually managed to extend their lead with an early penalty. But the second half was a low scoring affair, with that being their only points.
The Lions scored on the 60 minute mark through Tadhg Beirne who was hiding out on the left wing to bring the score up to 26-24.
That score remained until the 79 minute when the Lions scored to win the match in what will surely be a controversial manner after Carlo Tizzano was cleaned out of a maul in what looked like a shot to the neck. However, the referees were happy with the play and let the final try stand.
The Lions win the game 29-26 and the series 2-0.
