'Nervous and naive': Lions great Lawrence Dallaglio's withering 1st Test verdict

England and British and Irish Lions great Lawrence Dallaglio was less than impressed by what Australia had to offer in the opening Test of the 2025 series on Saturday, which the Lions won 27-19.

Dallaglio, a three-time tourist, went so far as to say that the Lions players had probably been tested more during the week in training than on the Suncorp pitch, despite falling short of the bookies’ expected winning margin of 14 points.

“There was a huge gulf in class… even if the winning margin was only eight points,” Dallaglio remarked in his column for The Times. “That has been the case in every match since they touched down in Australia.”

“In fact, the most competition they’ve had has probably been in their own training sessions and that is when most of the selection pointers will have been highlighted.

“You could have picked any XV from this squad for the games we’ve seen, and that’s largely the problem when it comes to touring Australia with the Lions. Every match in New Zealand and South Africa is very tough, but that simply hasn’t been the case this year.”

The Lions surged into a 17-5 half-time lead and should have been further in front given the time spent in the Australian 22. Dan Sheehan’s try at the start of the second half opened up the gap between the teams further, but the home team rallied with their bench making a positive impact, and ‘won’ the second half 14-10.

Dallaglio believes that the Lions produced the best 40 minutes of their tour so far during those opening 40 minutes.

“The Lions definitely saved their best 40 minutes of the tour so far for the first half of this Test,” he commented.

“Admittedly, their opponents are a limited Wallabies side who looked every bit the team that was ranked eighth in the world recently – they snuck up to sixth before this Test but were then shorn of key players such as Rob Valetini, Will Skelton and Langi Gleeson.

“They were always going to struggle with the power of the Lions and you had to feel for young Tom Lynagh making his first Test start at fly-half, who had no real options for ball-carriers.

“The Australians looked nervous and naive and for all the pre-match hype about Joe Schmidt being such a wonderful coach and having a few tricks up his sleeve… well, he’s not a magician.”