Will Winston-Smith

It is still worth noting what an overhyped achievement 🦁 Lions winning a test series in 🇦🇺 Australia is. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England won 3-0 there in 2016 by clearer margins vs an 🇦🇺 Australia ranked top 4 in the world at the time having won 7 of their last 9 games vs Tier 1 the year before and the only losses against an All Blacks side that was the greatest team in modern rugby history. Lions this year by contrast faced an opponent who have won just 3 of their last 10 games vs Tier 1 which included comprehensive back to back home losses to a rotating 🇿🇦 South Africa (aggregate score in those two games was 63-19 despite Boks making 11 changes for the second game) and nightmarishly shipping 67 away to 🇦🇷 Argentina. In their most recent match they barely beat 🇫🇯 Fiji at home. In addition to that 🇦🇺 Australia lost a 3 match series at home to 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England in 2022 at home 2-1. That Aussie team was coming off a poor November but had beaten 🇿🇦 South Africa twice the year before to come 2nd in the TRC so still in better form than this Wallabies side. Yet rather than being hyped and celebrated as a great achievement that England series win carried so little weight they sacked their coach just two losses later. 🇮🇪 Ireland also won a 3 match series there 2-1 in 2018. So of the four 3 match test series 🇦🇺 Australia have played in the last decade the only series win was 2-1 over a much depleted 🇫🇷 France who handed out 13 debuts on that tour and still should have won but for a farcical failure to kick the ball out on full time in the 1st test. Yet here we have the Lions comprising of 🇮🇪 Ireland (who on their own have won 6 of their last 7 vs Australia), 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England (who on their own have won 10 of their last 12 vs Australia), & 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland (who on their own have won 4 of their last 5 vs Australia) joining together to beat 🇦🇺 Australia by the barest of margins in the last minute and celebrating like they won a World Cup. In reality 3-0 ought to be bare minimum expectation for the Lions on this tour, anything less is an embarrassment, and an 11 point aggregate margin after two games really isn't that impressive at all and probably below par (not to forget they couldn't even beat a far from full strength 🇦🇷 Argentina and fielding virtually the test team looked dreadful vs Brumbies team missing all their best players). Yet there are headlines such as "Andy Farrell’s victorious Lions stand on the verge of all-time greatness". Sorry, but that is total bollocks. This Lions team and this tour is quite possibly the most OVERHYPED and OVERRATED in rugby history. Frankly the players ought to embarrassed celebrating like they'd climbed Rugby Everest squeaking to a win vs an opponent with 3 wins in their last 10 Tier 1 matches as part of a combined force including three who have beaten them multiple times already and all four Unions have bigger budgets. Imagine if 🇳🇿 New Zealand, 🇦🇺 Australia, 🇫🇯 Fiji all pooled together as an Oceania XV to beat say 🇦🇷 Argentina how ludicrous it would look to trumpet that as a great achievement. Yet that isn't far off the equivalent of what the Lions hype machine is doing here.

Day 1 in motion 🏃