{"id":248231,"date":"2025-07-08T14:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T14:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/248231\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T14:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T14:43:09","slug":"bullish-ex-all-black-predicts-bi-lions-will-blowtorch-wallabies-weakness-planet-rugby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/248231\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Bullish’ ex-All Black predicts B&I Lions will ‘blowtorch’ Wallabies weakness : Planet Rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former All Blacks fly-half Aaron Cruden does not believe that Australia should be panicking about their performance against Fiji as the British and Irish Lions Tests draw near.<\/b><\/p>\n

The Wallabies produced an unconvincing performance against the Pacific Islanders, with head coach Joe Schmidt left frustrated by the 21-18 victory sealed by a late Harry Wilson try.<\/p>\n

No need to panic<\/p>\n

While many believe that Australia\u2019s<\/a> performance is a real concern for the Series, Cruden<\/a> says it\u2019s not panic station just yet, pointing to how rusty New Zealand looked in their first Test match of the year against France.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose similar to what I said with the All Blacks first Test, you don\u2019t necessarily need to overreact, but there will be certain areas of concern for Joe Schmidt and the Wallabies,\u201d he said on the Breakdown<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably just seeing how well the Lions<\/a> have come together and gelled, that\u2019s going to be, where the Wallabies possibly need to improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be an interesting series. I don\u2019t know, who I\u2019m sort of favouring right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, fellow ex-All Blacks fly-half Stephen Donald pinpointed the area of the game where the Lions will have a major advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think as everyone\u2019s talked about and I\u2019ve been bullish, it\u2019s the 9-10 options for the Wallabies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow they allowed Fiji back into the game, it was the game management.\u201d<\/p>\n

Devastating Wallabies blow as first-choice fly-half to miss B&I Lions Series leaving Joe Schmidt with a massive void<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Australia v Fiji: Five takeaways as Harry Wilson saves Wallabies\u2019 blushes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Wallabies weakness<\/p>\n

The Wallabies have been dealt a further blow in this area of the game with Schmidt\u2019s first-choice playmaker Lolesio ruled out of the Tests.<\/p>\n

This left ex-All Blacks winger Jeff Wilson pondering \u201cwho steps up?\u201d after Schmidt relied on Lolesio all last year and was the top-performing fly-half in Super Rugby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, they\u2019re going to then have to toss up between Ben Donaldson or Tom Lynagh, who obviously haven\u2019t got the same experience as Lolesio,\u201d Donald replied before pinpointing this as an injury the Lions will target.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone who the Lions would then apply a massive blowtorch to as far as that first Test goes.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when you look at the Aussies today, especially, I just thought the reasons why Fiji probably came back is that they were allowed to come back in through Australia\u2019s game management.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schmidt is set to name an updated squad for the series and may include an experienced option at number ten, with current options being Donaldson, Lynagh and Tane Edmed, who combined boast just 22 caps worth of international experience.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0<\/b>Dean Richards rubbishes nepotism claims as Owen Farrell would\u2019ve beaten Smiths to B&I Lions squad<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Blacks fly-half Aaron Cruden does not believe that Australia should be panicking about their performance against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[78684,186,5313,225,90462,12,4151,79,13881,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-248231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-aaron-cruden","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-british-and-irish-lions","11":"tag-home-page","12":"tag-internationals","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-rugby","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-stephen-donald","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114818148461448178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248231","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=248231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}