{"id":285096,"date":"2025-07-23T11:43:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T11:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/285096\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T11:43:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T11:43:12","slug":"graham-price-lions-first-test-didnt-feel-right-i-cant-understand-what-australia-have-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/285096\/","title":{"rendered":"Graham Price: Lions first Test didn’t feel right, I can’t understand what Australia have done"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lions won but the Wallabies were very undercooked. It makes no sense considering they have known this huge series was coming for so long\"Graham<\/p>\n

The Wales prop legend has been a regular contributor to WalesOnline and the Wales on Sunday for a number of years<\/p>\n

\"LionsLions head coach Andy Farrell congratulates his players(Image: 2025 Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Did Andy Farrell get his Lions selection right? Based on the evidence of the success in the first half he was not far off the mark with his starting line-up.<\/p>\n

The Lions<\/a> selection of Tom Curry, Tadgh Beirne and Tadgh Furlong certainly justified their selection<\/a> after indifferent form shown in the run up to the first Test.<\/p>\n

I’m sure they will be delighted with how they responded to being selected. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.<\/a><\/p>\n

Curry and Beirne were absolutely outstanding with their work at the breakdown and Jack Conan played his part in keeping the Lions on the front foot with his ball carrying.<\/p>\n

However, I was disappointed with the scrum. I expected us to dominate. The substitutes didn\u2019t fare any better either.<\/p>\n

Outside the scrum the front row played really well.<\/p>\n

Finn Russell and Jamison Gibson-Park controlled the game well until we took our foot off the gas.<\/p>\n

We could have gone on to have secured a much more convincing victory. No doubt their 24-5 lead caused them to become complacent.<\/p>\n

I felt that when the Lions had the ball we could have scored more often if it wasn\u2019t for wasted opportunities.<\/p>\n

However, errors and indiscipline crept into our play. There were a few relatively poor performances.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying for one minute that the Lions didn\u2019t deserve to win. We won because of what we achieved in the first half.<\/p>\n

On reflection, this Lions team will, no doubt, feel they will be able to play much better in the second Test. Under the circumstances, there was still plenty of brilliant play from the Lions.<\/p>\n

The Wallabies were seriously undercooked but it was only in the second half that they played to anything resembling their true potential. For large periods, until then, the game was almost completely one-sided.<\/p>\n

Their replacements made a huge impact last week and they are going to get better with Will Skelton and Rob Valetini available for the second Test after recovering from injury.<\/p>\n

Australia played like a team that hadn\u2019t had much game-time preparation.<\/p>\n

I honestly can\u2019t understand why they limited their preparation to just one warm-up game against Fiji.<\/p>\n

They have had a couple of years to plan the tour and the build up to the first Test. Twelve years if you wanted to look at it that way.<\/p>\n

\"AustraliaAustralia will now regroup for a must-win game next week<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve had a poor playing record recently but one would have thought that they would have wanted to give themselves the best possible chance of beating the Lions.<\/p>\n

It was disappointing that there didn\u2019t seem to be much of an atmosphere at the ground and, for a lot of this game, it did not feel like a Lions Test match. The ideal objective of the Test series is to be 1-1 going into the last Test with everything to play for.<\/p>\n

It is strange for the Lions to win a Test match and for there not to be scenes of absolute jubilation during and after the game.<\/p>\n

Winning the first Test puts us in a good position and we definitely shouldn\u2019t be complacent after the Wallabies’ performance in their second-half comeback.<\/p>\n

We need to ensure we are prepared for them to be at their best. It will take an 80-minute performance to make sure we produce a win next week.<\/p>\n

However, in the meantime, we had the Tuesday fixture of First Nations Pasifika XV.<\/p>\n

Did anyone have a realistic chance of making it into the Test team?<\/p>\n

I had the impression that most of the team played as if they had no real hope of making any further contribution to the tour.<\/p>\n

In respect of the selection of the team to play in the second Test, the only part of the team I would question is the back three. I can see Blair Kinghorn taking over from Hugo Keenan at full-back and perhaps Mack Hansen in place of Tommy Freeman if fit, with Owen Farrell taking a place on the bench.<\/p>\n

Jac Morgan may well have a chance of a place on the bench with news emerging Joe McCarthy is likely to miss out through injury, with Ollie Chessum, who as among the replacements last week, starting. It will be a deserved Lions Test cap for Morgan if it does happen.<\/p>\n

I expect the Aussies will be much better in Melbourne next weekend and that the Lions will produce an 80-minute performance. Let\u2019s hope we will witness the traditional sort of atmosphere we expect at a Lions Test match.<\/p>\n

Graham Price’s column is in association with Nigel Jones, experts in dental implants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lions won but the Wallabies were very undercooked. It makes no sense considering they have known this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[5313,4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-285096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-british-and-irish-lions","9":"tag-rugby","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114902375487236428","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285096","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=285096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}