Final tickets still available! Get your tickets for the British & Irish Lions tour here<\/a><\/p>\nHis team steamrolled in the first half, Lynagh was forced to play off the back foot as he scrambled, schemed \u00a0and copped an inevitable defensive battering.<\/p>\n
His kicking game was hit-and-miss and Lynagh had some threatening moments running at the line, but coach Joe Schmidt applauded his work, considering the dominance of the Lions’ pack.<\/p>\n
“They targeted him through their big ball carriers and also targeted him in the air,” said scrumhalf and Queensland Reds teammate Tate McDermott, who shone as a second-half replacement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He communicated well, defended valiantly and he’s going to be in the firing line again.<\/p>\n
“The boys have seen the warrior Tommy is.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We know he has a great kicking game, but he showed fight and courage, which is really important from the general, and guys are going to look towards that in coming weeks.”<\/p>\n
Smiling through the punishment, Lynagh has welcomed round two on July 26 in Melbourne, where the Wallabies must win to force a Sydney decider and stave off chatter of the first 3-0 win in the country since 1904.<\/p>\n
“It was always something I wanted to do, follow in my dad’s footsteps, so I’m sort of living the dream now,” he said, 36 years after his father wore the No.10 against the Lions.<\/p>\n
UK-based Michael arrived in Brisbane on Friday night and caught up with his son on Saturday morning to deliver his usual message.<\/p>\n
“Just keep it simple, don’t overplay your hand. That message never changed from when I was 13,” Tom said.<\/p>\n
Lynagh came in for the injured Noah Lolesio, a regular starter at No.10 under Schmidt who is out with a long-term neck injury before shifting to Japan next season.<\/p>\n
The unflustered customer lived up to his reputation despite the grand stage and imposing challenge after just three Test appearances off the bench.<\/p>\n
“No nerves … no point to prove, just go out and play my game,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve always sort of been like that, try to be as relaxed as possible.<\/p>\n
“It’s part of the job; you’ve got to toughen up in games like that, can’t shy away from anything.<\/p>\n
“My position, my build; I’m an easy target and I know that … it’s just my job.”<\/p>\n
McDermott, who pressed his case to start ahead of Jake Gordon in Melbourne with a trademark darting try, said his team took plenty from their second-half performance.<\/p>\n
“The belief was there the whole week, but might have been dented a bit after the way the Lions came out of the blocks,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We can take a lot out of that second half, for sure, and we need do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We just need to continue to look at ways to get into games.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wallabies have rallied around “easy target” Tom Lynagh, adamant he can manufacture a series comeback after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,2500],"class_list":["post-7552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-wallabies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7552","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=7552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}