Sione Tuipulotu has to raise his game this week. By his own admission he has not been up to scratch. He has been surprised by just how off the pace he has been, but he is confident he will deliver in the buildup to the second Test between the British & Irish Lions and Australia.<\/p>\n
Tuipulotu is, of course, referring to his role as the Lions\u2019 tour guide, having grown up in Australia, as Andy Farrell\u2019s players arrive in his home city of Melbourne hoping to wrap up the series. \u201cI haven\u2019t actually been that good at it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s surprising, I don\u2019t actually know that much about Australia having lived here that long. I know a bit about Melbourne, so I\u2019ll point the boys to some good spots.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the field, however, Tuipulotu believes \u201cthe stars are aligning\u201d. Like Tom Curry and Tadhg Beirne, the Scotland centre was among a group of players who had yet to hit their straps before rising to the challenge in Saturday\u2019s first Test victory<\/a> in Brisbane. The 28\u2011year\u2011old carried hard, won significant metres, made repeated use of his dextrous footwork and became the first Scotland international to score a Test try for the Lions in 28 years, receiving a sublime pass from Finn Russell and finishing off during the visitors\u2019 first-half onslaught.<\/p>\n Tuipulotu was at his combative best, relishing his duel with Joseph Suaalii \u2013 \u201cHe\u2019s a competitor and so am I\u201d \u2013 and justifying Farrell\u2019s decision to select an all-Scotland 10\u201112\u201113 axis.<\/p>\n The Lions grew sloppy enough in the second half in Brisbane to know the Wallabies will not roll over in Melbourne, but the opportunity to wrap up a first Lions series win in 12 years in his home city is not lost on Tuipulotu.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of crazy that we can close out the series in my home town where I grew up,\u201d he says. \u201cI know all of the attention is going to shift on to how we can play better from this game. We left a lot of points out there in the first half.<\/p>\n \u201cThe game should have been done a long time. The first 30-40 minutes, we could have put enough points on to really put a nail in the coffin. But to go back to Melbourne this week, hopefully play in front of my family, the stars have aligned for me and I feel very grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n Tuipulotu left Australia for Scotland four years ago and has rarely been back since. In Melbourne he will be cheered on by his nearest and dearest, however, including his grandmother Jacqueline, who grew up outside Glasgow and made the trip to Murrayfield in November to watch Scotland defeat the Wallabies<\/a>. \u201cIf you\u2019d ask me when I first moved from Melbourne I would say, yeah, it is personal,\u201d Tuipulotu says. \u201cThere is still a chip on my shoulder, what has got me to this point is having that chip on my shoulder. But in terms of me being bitter about Australian rugby; not at all, mate.<\/p>\n Huw Jones (left), Finn Russell (centre) and Sione Tuipulotu, the Scottish 10-12-13 axis for the Lions, pose together after winning the first Test. Photograph: David Rogers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t good enough to play for the Wallabies when I was in Melbourne. It wasn\u2019t a selector problem, I wasn\u2019t good enough, that\u2019s plain and simple. I owe everything to Scottish rugby because they\u2019ve made me the player that I am today and now I get the chance to go back to Melbourne and play in my home city and hopefully close out a Test series. My little brother Mosese was flag-bearer for the [Melbourne Test in 2013]. It was pretty cool. It\u2019s crazy that 12 years later I\u2019m playing in one of these in a Test game. I\u2019m really grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Tuipulotu\u2019s try on Saturday was the Lions\u2019 first and had echoes of a memorable Huw Jones effort against England at Murrayfield in 2018, with Russell looping a delightful pass for his teammate to run on to. The forwards provided the platform but Russell delivered a masterclass in Brisbane on his first Test start for the Lions.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been rooming with Finn this whole week,\u201d Tuipulotu says. \u201cBeing around him made me not overreact to the occasion. It felt like we were playing a Scotland game together, how we room together back with Scotland. His nature helps everyone and calms everyone. Then you add to that he\u2019s got one of the best skill sets of any 10 in the world, it\u2019s a joy to play with.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t take any credit for [the try], that\u2019s him finding me. He threw a pretty similar pass a few years ago against England to Huw Jones off his left hand. It was kind of weird, when he was throwing it I was kind of thinking of that, thinking he was going to throw it into that space. I didn\u2019t have to do much, just had to accelerate and catch the ball. That\u2019s why playing with special players is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sione Tuipulotu has to raise his game this week. By his own admission he has not been up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-9102","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\/9102","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=9102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}