{"id":199693,"date":"2025-06-20T11:06:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T11:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/199693\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T11:06:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T11:06:17","slug":"the-late-night-wallabies-error-of-judgement-that-was-blown-out-of-proportion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/199693\/","title":{"rendered":"The late-night Wallabies ‘error of judgement’ that was ‘blown out of proportion’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It remains etched forever in Lions<\/a> series folklore but 2013 Wallabies teammates reckon Kurtley Beale<\/a> and James O\u2019Connor\u2019s infamous early-morning burger bust was \u201cblown out of proportion\u201d.<\/p>\n

Beale and O\u2019Connor being captured at 3.50am at a fast food outlet between the first and second Tests of the previous series in Australia, 12 years ago, sent Fleet Street into a frenzy.<\/p>\n

Sans Quade Cooper<\/a>, the other two of Australian rugby\u2019s so-called \u2018Three Amigos\u2019 watched their then-club side Melbourne Rebels<\/a> lose to the British and Irish Lions\u2019 mid-week outfit 35-0 in Melbourne before heading to a post-match function.<\/p>\n

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Rugby Australia<\/a> accepted the pair\u2019s explanation that they had not been drinking and opted to take no disciplinary action Beale and O\u2019Connor, who helped the Wallabies level the series four days later with a 16-15 victory over the Lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just hungry,\u201d Beale told AAP this week while reflecting on the \u201cerror in judgement\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went in there and got a feed, and then we were heading back to the hotel. And then these guys took the photo and they put it in the paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we were doing a good thing, saying \u2018G\u2019day\u2019. These lads were full of alcohol and sent it into the paper. And here we are.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, looking at it now, I don\u2019t really see anything of it really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nor did Beale\u2019s teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was vice-captain at the time and I didn\u2019t think about it as being a big deal,\u201d halfback Will Genia<\/a> told AAP.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just had Burger King on a Tuesday night and we had Wednesday off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing was probably that they were out late. If they were going to be up late, they probably would have been better off being in their rooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the end of the day, I thought that was blown out of proportion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose sorts of things happen. Like players are in their room til three o\u2019clock in the morning playing PlayStation or whatever the games are called these days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat that does go to show, though, is the level of scrutiny and the level of attention that is on these tours is a different level.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s what I loved about it. That\u2019s what I really enjoyed about it. I love that it was this massive event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back, Beale shrugs off the episode as \u201canother embarrassing moment where it probably got taken out of perspective a bit\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t really know any better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still turned up the next day, rocked up, still trained, did our job for the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut understanding now how that could have a negative impact on the team and the look, we could probably look back and regret that decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there was no intention to go out. It was the time when social media was starting to get out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one that you just look back on and just got to understand the power of social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith phones, people have got a camera everywhere. It\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than a decade on, Beale\u2019s missed late penalty kick when he had the chance to boot Australia to victory in the first Test three days earlier remains the more regrettable slip-up for he and Genia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pitch was a bit soggy and I wasn\u2019t wearing studs that day either. I was wearing moulds, which is probably the biggest learning curve I\u2019ve taken,\u201d recalls Beale, who still \u201clooks away\u201d whenever footage of the slip is shown.<\/p>\n

While he doesn\u2019t blame Beale, Genia maintains that missed shot at goal and a loose kick from Berrick Barnes<\/a> that allowed George North<\/a> to score in the Lions\u2019 23-21 win ultimately proved the turning point of the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I can say we we lost the series is we should have won the first Test,\u201d Genia said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won the second but it took a lot out of us emotionally to come back and win that, and then we were probably a bit flat. We couldn\u2019t recover emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It remains etched forever in Lions series folklore but 2013 Wallabies teammates reckon Kurtley Beale and James O\u2019Connor\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-199693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114715373408548514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}