Former British and Irish Lions centre Will Greenwood believes that Andy Farrell’s side, that defeated the Wallabies, would have gone ‘toe-to-toe’ with the All Blacks and Springboks.
After losing their opening game of the year to Argentina, the Lions emphatically turned things around in Australia and won all of their touring matches and the Test series 2-1.
Heading into the third and final Test match, Farrell’s men had a shot at greatness as they attempted to not only whitewash the tour but also become the first touring squad since the 1974 tour of South Africa to win a Test series 3-0.
Defeat doesn’t diminish Lions’ achievement
However, they fell agonisingly short with a 22-12 defeat to Australia in Sydney. After dominating the first Test match, the Lions needed a late controversial try in the second game to come from behind and seal the series before being outplayed in the third.
The drop off in performance has been heavily scrutinised by so many, but Greenwood still believes that this was a ‘vintage’ Lions team.
“This group might have lost in Sydney, but that does little to diminish their achievement,” he wrote in his Telegraph column.
“You are always a vintage Lions group if you win a series – no matter the opposition. After all, they could only beat what was put in front of them, which is critical to highlight.
He added, “If you win a Lions series, you have a bond for life. This group will be meeting up in 25, 30 years’ time having achieved something special. By then, history will have forgotten the finer details. People have been too quick to say ‘the Lions should have won’. They have achieved something that so few touring teams have done.”
While the Lions were underwhelming in the third Test against the Wallabies, Greenwood believes that the touring team would have gone toe-to-toe with the Springboks and All Blacks, who are currently the two top-ranked teams in the world.
South Africa clinched a 2-1 series victory over the Lions in 2021, while the honours were even the last time the men in red toured New Zealand, with a drawn third Test meaning that the series ended 1-1.
“The 2025 Lions are an awesome bunch of lads and there is no doubt in my mind that they would have gone toe-to-toe with the likes of New Zealand and South Africa. Such comparisons are hypothetical – futile, even – but the Lions were putting world-class players out on the pitch on a weekly basis. Players who have beaten both the All Blacks and the Springboks with their respective countries,” he wrote.
“Yes, I am a pundit but I am also an ex-player. You look at the calibre of some of those Lions: Dan Sheehan, Maro Itoje, Tadhg Beirne, Tom Curry, Jamison Gibson-Park and Finn Russell. Special people and special players. Sheehan is the obvious candidate for player of the series – and he is the player the Lions might have missed most through injury – but really it could have gone to any of the aforementioned.”
The Lions will be remembered as series winners
Greenwood believes that the performances on the pitch won’t be remembered in the future, only the final result.
“The Lions lost tonight but they will be remembered as series winners,” he added.
“That is how history will remember them: not as underachievers, not as a lucky group, not as a group who got on the right side of the referee and not as a group who struggled with the conditions in the third Test. But winners. They achieved something that many other squads, filled with some of the best names in Lions history, have failed to do, against an opposition which started slowly but grew and improved as the series progressed.”
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