Lions win again but Brumbies expose flaws

ACT Brumbies (10) 24

Tries: Tualima, Toole, Creighton, Bowron Cons: Lonergan, Debreczeni

British and Irish Lions (19) 36

The British and Irish Lions outscored the ACT Brumbies five tries to four in Canberra in their fourth straight victory on Australian soil.

In an at times excellent – and at other times troubling – performance, the tourists made their now customary slow start, conceding early to Brumbies back-row Tuaina Taii Tualima.

The wonderful Ollie Chessum, James Lowe and Marcus Smith – on for Blair Kinghorn after the full-back suffered a knee injury – struck for the Lions, but the Brumbies scored a second through Corey Toole.

It was 19-10 to the Lions at the break and they added to their tally when Garry Ringrose and Josh van der Flier scored.

The Brumbies were persistent and a thorough pain for the Lions, never going away.

During the week captain Maro Itoje said his team had to “start big”, but they started small, yet again.

They dropped a high ball inside the first 30 seconds and gave away a couple of penalties as they tried to keep the Brumbies out, which they could not.

They banged away for an age, but they got there, big number eight Tuaina Taii Tualima, who caught dengue fever in the spring, dived over at the side of a ruck. A sitter of a conversion was missed, but the Lions had been warned.

The Brumbies might have been missing eight Wallabies, but they were ferocious.

When the Lions were good, they were terrific, but there were a ton of turnovers in their game again, the part of their make-up that frustrated them so much in Sydney against the Waratahs.

The breakdown was an issue again. A lot of good, but this is not a team that took the kind of steps forward they were hoping to take against a second-string Brumbies.

The Lions drew level through the outstanding Chessum, a non-stop powerhouse.

Off a big scrum and a penalty advantage, Bundee Aki went thundering at the heart of the Brumbies. The hole duly punched, Gibson-Park and Russell got it to Chessum, who did really well to take the Scot’s pass slightly behind him and in one hand to go over.

After more outstanding attacking, Lowe thought he had gone over in the corner only for Andy Muirhead, the Brumbies full-back, to deny the grounding.

The Lions then lost Kinghorn, with Smith appearing. There seems to be a plague on full-backs in red right now – Elliot Daly at home, Hugo Keenan’s illness a week back and now Kinghorn’s early exit.

Lowe did score soon after, though. And it was class – speedy and precise and ruthless with more than half a dozen Lions’ hands on ball before the supreme Dan Sheehan and the powerful Jack Conan put the wing in.

Russell converted for a 12-5 Lions lead. Not entirely convincing, but better.

And then worse. Joe McCarthy was done for not releasing, the Brumbies went to touch and threw a monster, loopy pass right to left for Toole to get over, Smith unable to do anything about it.

It got better for the tourists when Ringrose made a half-break, dummied and then passed to Smith, who grubbered cleverly. Ringrose galloped on to it and scored. Russell’s conversion made it a healthy 26-10.

The Lions still had their issues with the number of turnovers they were conceding.

There was good stuff out there, but as soon as you started to think that, the Brumbies exposed them again.

From a scrum, it was painfully easy for Creighton to run in. The defence was non-existent.

A conversion at last and the gap was back down to nine points. Just after the hour-mark, Russell put over a penalty from in front of the posts, a first penalty of the tour in Australia and a sign of a side that wanted to build their score rather than chase tries.

Brumbies: Muirhead; O’Donnell, Sapsford, Feliuai, Toole; Meredith, R Lonergan (capt); Leli, L Lonergan, Van Nek, Shaw, Neville, Hooper, Scott, Tualima.

Replacements: Bowron, Orr, Fotuaika, L Hooper, Reimer, Goddard, Debreczeni, Creighton.

British and Irish Lions: Kinghorn, Freeman, Ringrose, Aki, Lowe, Russell, Gibson-Park; Genge, Sheehan, Furlong, Itoje (capt), McCarthy, Chessum, Curry, Conan.

Referee: Pierre Brousset (Fra)

Assistant Referee 1: Paul Williams (NZ)

Assistant Referee 2: Nika Amashukeli (GEO)

TMO: Marius van der Westhuizen (SA)