{"id":22389,"date":"2025-07-26T00:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T00:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22389\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T00:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T00:40:11","slug":"why-lions-can-expect-a-little-more-swagger-from-wallabies-in-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22389\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Lions can expect a little more ‘swagger’ from Wallabies in Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fullback Tom Wright<\/a> says there\u2019s been a \u201cpassing of the torch\u201d as he adjusts to playing alongside rookie flyhalf Tom Lynagh<\/a>, who is leading the Wallabies into battle against the British and Irish Lions.<\/p>\n

Wright has spent much of his Test career alongside Noah Lolesio<\/a> in the No.10 jersey, while the pair have also played five years of Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> together at the ACT Brumbies.<\/p>\n

Lolesio was ruled out of the Lions<\/a> series, having undergone neck surgery after an injury during the Test against Fiji, with Lynagh making his starting debut in the opening loss to the Lions in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the must-win match at the MCG on Saturday night, Wright said Queensland playmaker Lynagh had settled in and brought his own \u201cswagger\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy\u2019s brought his own little swagger that he\u2019s got at the Reds,\u201d Wright said of Lynagh, whose father, Michael, was a Wallabies great.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve admired that about his game for a little while \u2013 he\u2019s got like a slight sort of subtle confidence about himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re going to see more and more of that ooze out of him the more comfortable he becomes in that starting 10 jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy has an incredible skill set that we\u2019ve all got to back and continue to pour confidence into him because we believe in him and the skill set that he does have and the game plan that he\u2019s sort of driving from within.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

British & Irish Lions<\/p>\n

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Australia <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

British & Irish Lions <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wright said he felt for his good friend Lolesio, who may have played his last Test for Australia<\/a> after opting to move his career to Japan.<\/p>\n

He said the 25-year-old had shown his class by spending time with Lynagh in the Wallabies camp and passing on his knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cNoah was trying to add his two cents worth around what he sees and feels and helping Tommy,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a cool sort of passing of the torch, at least for the short term at least, with his neck injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got real belief in Tommy, though and what he can bring to this side for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Wallabies\u2019 backline believes they will be more prepared for the aerial assault from Lions playmaker Finn Russell.<\/p>\n

Wright hoped they could make more use of their time and space with the ball to launch a counterattack.<\/p>\n

Young winger Max Jorgensen\u2019s first-half try came when he plucked the ball from Lions fullback Hugo Keenan<\/a> in an aerial contest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know the aerial raid that\u2019s coming again, ball on foot, and the way that we can nullify that, get numbers behind the ball again,\u201d the 28-year-old said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw a couple of instances where we\u2019re able to shift the ball away from that sort of aerial threat or crumbs and find a little bit of space \u2026 so if we\u2019re good enough to take those opportunities again, that would be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fullback Tom Wright says there\u2019s been a \u201cpassing of the torch\u201d as he adjusts to playing alongside rookie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-22389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}