Australia v British & Irish Lions live: score, commentary, updates

Furlong, 32, was a rising star with fewer than 20 caps under his belt when he was picked for the 2017 tour to New Zealand. He had signalled his quality the previous autumn with breakthrough performances as Ireland defeated the All Blacks in Chicago, stood tall in a ferocious rematch at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin and then defeated Australia.

● Read more: Three tours, nine Test starts in row: how Tadhg Furlong became Lions rock

It is so easy to overlook the true extent of what Maro Itoje has achieved in his rugby career (Sam Warburton writes). Everyone knows that he has been, along with Owen Farrell, at the centre of Saracens’ and England’s success for more than a decade, but delve a bit deeper and his CV is extraordinary.

I thought I’d take a look at the highlights. He has won the Premiership five times, the Champions Cup three times, the Under-20 World Cup with England and three Six Nations titles, including a grand slam. He has also finished runner-up and third at the World Cup, on three occasions he has been nominated for world player of the year, he was World Rugby’s breakthrough player of the year in 2016, he has been in World Rugby’s “dream team of the year”, he was player of the series in the British & Irish Lions’ tour to South Africa in 2021, and has passed 100 Test caps on this tour. Now, he is a Lions’ series-winning captain, with the chance of making further history on Saturday if they complete a 3-0 clean sweep against Australia.

● Read more: I knew on 2017 tour Maro Itoje was special — now he’s a rugby icon

Clearly it’s going to be a day for kicking . . . you know those penalties that Finn Russell was nailing into the far corners last week — he’s just been out on the field practising them metronomically (Owen Slot writes). Kicks to corners, 50-22s and up-and-unders — he’s been going through the whole repertoire of everything we’re going to see later.

It is so wet here that the yellow lines have washed off, so the referees have asked them to repaint them!

The ground staff are now out there going over everything again (Will Kelleher writes). It’s monsoon style.

I didn’t realise that so much of the stadium was uncovered (Owen Slot writes). The rain is coming in and out, in waves (almost literally). There will be a lot of very wet punters here.

. . . it’s fair enough in this instance, isn’t it?

Joe Schmidt has left Carlo Tizzano out of his Australia team to face the British & Irish Lions, saying that Jac Morgan’s controversial clear-out in the second Test registered a force of 54G.

The Australia head coach also said that his back-row forward had suffered online abuse since the Morgan incident, in the lead-up to Hugo Keenan’s match-winning try, so he felt it right to leave him out for the third Test in Sydney. Schmidt clarified that Tizzano is not concussed and has not undergone, let alone failed, a head-injury assessment.

Rugby players now wear instrumented mouth guards with gyroscopes in them, which measure the impacts of tackles. A hit of more than 70G and and 4,000 radians per second squared of acceleration and rotation triggers an alert with the match-day doctors and the player then has to be checked for a head injury.

● Read more: Australia rest Carlo Tizzano after abuse over controversial clear-out

Sydney has been the epicentre of the rugby world this week (Alex Lowe writes). Senior executives from across the global game are in town. You would call them “suits” but some are wearing British & Irish Lions hoodies. Hotel lobbies and breakfast rooms are abuzz with conversation and one of the main topics is R360, the proposed new global franchise competition.

R360 representatives, including Mike Tindall, are also in Sydney, working towards their target of signing pre-contract agreements with 200 major players by September. Kalyn Ponga and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck are among the NRL stars on their shopping list, as well as the biggest names in rugby union. All of this is taking place before the third Test between the Lions and Australia; a new concept butting up against the old.

● Read more: Seismic threat of R360 rebel league looms large over Lions’ shot at history

Before we get started, let’s take a look at the teams. Or, at least, given the rumours around the fitness of players in both camps, we were told prior to today. Special shoutout to Alex Mitchell, who has been picked by Andy Farrell in every single Lions 23 this year. The man who looks like a badly-drawn Gary Neville is 10-0. Cracking stuff. And he’s fresh, having not come off the bench against First Nations & Pasifika or the second Test.

Australia XV 15 Tom Wright; 14 Max Jorgensen, 13 Joseph‑Aukuso Suaalii, 12 Len Ikitau, 11 Dylan Pietsch; 10 Tom Lynagh, 9 Nic White; 1 James Slipper, 2 David Porecki, 3 Taniela Tupou, 4 Nick Frost, 5 Will Skelton; 6 Tom Hooper, 7 Fraser McReight, 8 Harry Wilson (c).
Replacements 16 Billy Pollard, 17 Angus Bell, 18 Zane Nonggorr, 19 Jeremy Williams, 20 Langi Gleeson, 21 Tate McDermott, 22 Ben Donaldson, 23 Andrew Kellaway.

Lions XV 15 Hugo Keenan; 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Huw Jones, 12 Bundee Aki, 11 Blair Kinghorn; 10 Finn Russell, 9 Jamison Gibson‑Park; 1 Andrew Porter, 2 Dan Sheehan, 3 Tadhg Furlong, 4 Maro Itoje (c), 5 James Ryan; 6 Tadhg Beirne, 7 Tom Curry, 8 Jack Conan. Replacements 16 Ronan Kelleher, 17 Ellis Genge, 18 Will Stuart, 19 Ollie Chessum, 20 Jac Morgan, 21 Ben Earl, 22 Alex Mitchell, 23 Owen Farrell.

It’s an utterly miserable night in Sydney — actually it has been like this since Wednesday (Will Kelleher writes). It’s barely stopped raining all day and all night, but off we go to the ground, slightly ruing not wearing a hooded coat!

The news is that Tommy Freeman has been passed fit to play. We had heard he had a back injury, and the Lions said he missed training because his GPS unit flagged he had overtrained on this trip. However, he is fine enough to make the starting line-up it seems.

No need then to call up someone like Mack Hansen or Jamie Osborne who according to Henry Pollock’s Instagram were out drinking last night. Just as well, eh?

Well here we are then. A tour that started in Dublin on June 20, properly started on June 28 in Perth and then really kicked into gear on July 19 in Brisbane comes to an end today. The Lions have wrapped up the series. They have already won. It’s 2-0 to the northern Hemisphere knights of fire and fury. However, we are not done yet. It has been 98 years since the Lions won a clean sweep. The Wallabies, who showed heart too late in the first Test and then had it broken last weekend, will do all they can to ensure there is no whitewash (or redwash?). What will happen? Stick with us for the latest news and analysis from our brave boys on the ground at the SCG.