These are your latest rugby headlines on Wednesday, July 30.The Lions in training (Image: David Rogers/Getty Images)

These are your latest rugby headlines on Wednesday, July 30.

Pundit in furious Lions rant

Australian rugby pundit Matt Williams has aimed a furious rant at the “disrespect” he believes has been shown to the Wallabies amid suggestions the Lions should look to tour elsewhere in the future.

With the Lions already wrapping up a series victory and looking to seal a historic 3-0 washout in the final Test in Sydney this weekend there has been plenty of discussion about where the future of the iconic tour lies, with the idea of a campaign in France quickly gaining traction amongst fans and rugby bosses.

But, particularly in the wake of Australia’s impressive performance in the second Test in Melbourne, former Scotland coach Williams is not happy with such suggestions, branding them as “arrogant” and “disrespectful” to his homeland. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.

“How do I say this without sounding an aggressive and angry person?” he said during an appearance on Off the Ball. “The disrespect Australia has been shown by all the talk: ‘Why did we ever come back here again? What are we doing here?’ It has got up everyone’s nose here.

“It is really so disrespectful that your visitors come to this country, we provide everything for you, you’re making 10 fortunes that you don’t make in South Africa and New Zealand and all you do is whinge and bitch about us.

“And then when we come out in the second Test and play unbelievably well and you win in the last second – on a great try and a fantastic game – and people say ‘we don’t know if we’ll come back’. Really? Is that what you’re going to do? Well, good luck.”

Continuing his impassioned rant, Williams maintained that the Lions would return to Australia in the future and called on those who support Andy Farrell’s side to change their attitudes.

“I can tell you they’ll come back and I can tell you why they’ll come back,” he said. “Because the Lions’ number one is about making money and Australia makes more money than any other tour. That’s the reason they’ll come back.

“The second part is Australian rugby is not like any other place in the world. We’ve got rugby league and AFL, there’s 36 professional teams in rugby league and AFL, we’ve got four professional rugby teams. We’re a minor sport in Australia. It’s not like New Zealand and South Africa and Ireland and England, we are a very, very minor sport here and we are hanging on by our fingernails.

“And instead of coming here and saying ‘we’ll help you hang on, we’ll help your game because we love rugby,’ people come here and say ‘you guys are simply not good enough, you’re not in our league, what are we doing here?’”

“It’s been really hard to take, I can tell you.,” Williams continued. “What you saw from the Wallabies last week was a response to that.

“It’s going to be hard for them this week, they’re so heartbroken, but I hope they come to the Olympic Stadium in Sydney and put in another really positive performance because it does need that and it does need the people who support the Lions to take a breath, stop your arrogance, stop telling us how crap we are.

“We’re fighting by ourselves to keep the game alive, could you help us? That hasn’t been the attitude so far.”

Lions recreate ‘Squid Game’ challenge

The British and Irish Lions have been recreating a challenge from hit Netflix show ‘Squid Game’ to keep training fresh of Saturday’s final Test against Australia in Sydney.

Andy Farrell’s squad played their own version of ‘Red Light, Green Light’. In the show, competitors play a version of the playground game with a twist – being shot by snipers if they fail to stop moving when a giant doll turns around.

“The whole field was covered in equipment they could hide behind,” said attack coach Andrew Goodman.

Late prop call-up Tom Clarkson was the first player to be ‘killed’ in the Lions’ own version of ‘Squid Game’, with Goodman admitting they would have done the game even if the series was tied up at 1-1.

“The staff were dressed up in all that kit, the speakers were all set up, it was a bit of fun,” added Goodman. “There were people in the top tier keeping an eye on everyone. It was a good crack.

“Every week we’ve done things like that. It keeps the boys engaged and fresh and it’s not just going into a meeting where it’s rugby all the time. There are little bits like that that make it enjoyable as well.”

Biggar ‘over the moon’ after Morgan decision

Dan Biggar has weighed in on the controversy surrounding Jac Morgan’s crucial clearout on Wallabies flanker Carlo Tizzano at the end of the British & Irish Lions’ second Test, admitting he was “over the moon” that his former Wales team-mate escaped punishment.

Morgan found himself at the centre of a furore following the full-time whistle in Melbourne, with his challenge on Tizzano coming in the build-up to Hugo Keenan’s dramatic last-minute try, which sealed a stunning 26-29 comeback victory on the night and secured the series win in the process.

The clearout from the Lions replacement was deemed legal by the match officials but those in the Wallabies camp were left furious with the decision, with head coach Joe Schmidt insisting it was the wrong call and one that didn’t “live up to [World Rugby’s] big player safety push”.

Schmidt’s claims have since been dismissed by the game’s global governing body and labelled as “disappointing”, and Biggar has now weighed in on the situation by claiming the “evidence was relatively clear” that the right decision was reached.

“I thought the clean-out was excellent,” the former Wales fly-half told The Rugby Pod. “The one thing you could almost argue is that he’s off his feet,” he said.

“If I were the Aussies, I’d probably be focusing a little bit more on that in terms of… you know sometimes when you see something on a TMO, you almost know in the first instance or the first replay whether it’s going to be a penalty, yellow card, red card or nothing, don’t you?

“First time I looked at it, I thought, he’s going to be really unlucky to be done for that. And I don’t think it was foul play,” Biggar continued. “I suppose in the absolute laws of the book, it potentially could be sealing off, but you’d probably see that clean out or that situation 15 times a game, wouldn’t you?

“I have to say, I think it was the right call to look at it. “100% it is the right call to look at it.

“But I think the evidence was relatively clear and I’m just really pleased that, I mean, I was feeling for Jac Morgan at that point because I thought the big selection process was about, does he start? Does he get on the bench?

“Only Welshman on tour. I just thought, how cruel would that be if that was sort of a defining act for him? And I was just over the moon that it wasn’t.”