Full disclosure here: Tom Lynagh is a player I have watched occasionally from as far back as his days with the Richmond Minis. Those were the days when he used to play in the same team as a junior Slot. It has been an unusual experience, then, to have seen his steady growth from eight-year-old to international. So I am clearly biased here.
Yet when we assess: how did it go for the 22-year-old No10, who was making his first start for Australia and playing behind a retreating pack and off a scrum half with whom he had never stepped on the field before? I think that’s not really a question, is it? It’s an answer. How else could it have gone?
Or put it this way: what can we really judge of a No10 when he is dealing with such adverse circumstances? I think the answer is this: we can tell a lot about his character.
The old cliché is that sport reveals character, arguably more in defeat than victory. This match revealed a young man full of courage, nerve and class.
It revealed a young man heavily targeted by the opposition — though it was obvious that was coming. The Lions brought him into the game as soon as they could, isolating him with the high ball. One of the few that he caught was the one where he was clattered by an illegal tackle from Tom Curry. Lynagh got up; no problem, no fuss, no complaint.
The odds were stacked against Lynagh on his first start but he showed character and bravery, not least for his efforts under the high ball
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND
It revealed a man in the playmaker position who seemed utterly unflustered by the way the game was turning against him: with his forwards who were losing the collisions, with the fact that he was playing off back foot not front, that he was being forced to put out fires when he would have rather been lighting them himself.
“I’ve got to be the most composed player on the field,” he explained afterwards. Well yes, but on your first start? Against the Lions?
According to the Wallabies website, Lynagh is a mere 81kg. That makes him the second-lightest in the squad. So of course the Lions would be coming for him. Again, no complaints.
“You’ve got to tough up for games like this,” he also said afterwards. “You can’t shy from anything. My position, my build, it’s an easy target and I know that so I’ve got to have my game at that level. It’s my job.”
And besides all that, he had the pressure and expectation that came with the surname. Yet he didn’t mind that either. As he said: “I knew that well before this series even started.”
Didn’t he feel the nerves? “No point,” was his response, and then this explanation: “I’ve always sort have been like that. Try to be relaxed as possible. Keep a calm head.”
The 22-year-old did not shy away from the media after the game despite being second best to the Lions
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND
Yes, impressive.
“There’s no way he lacks for courage,” Joe Schmidt, the Wallabies head coach, said. “The boys have seen the warrior Tommy is,” added Tate McDermott, Australia’s bench scrum half with whom Lynagh plays at the Queensland Reds.
I had wondered if he would do media after the game. After all, there was a fly half out on that field on Saturday who was absolutely on top of his game — and that certainly wasn’t Lynagh. He could have stayed away from the comparisons and out of the limelight and tried to disappear from the conversation. He certainly isn’t the kind to seek attention.
Yet he owned it completely. “This has always been something I wanted to do,” he said, “to follow in Dad’s footsteps. I’m sort of living the dream now. It’s a proud moment for me and my family.”
Lynagh, centre, with his dad Michael and brother Louis in 2021
IAN TUTTLE FOR THE TIMES
On the Australian TV coverage, he explained afterwards that on the morning of the game, when Michael, his father, came to the team hotel, it was the first time he had actually seen him in person for six months.
“He gave me a big hug,” he said. “I’m trying not to tear up here. He was trying not to tear up this morning.”
The broader point, here, is that the circumstances of the game make it preposterous to attempt to judge Lynagh as an international No10 or to weigh up whether he is the player upon whom the Wallabies can build their future.
For now, Schmidt should be helping him to grow. There have been some who have suggested that the head coach should withdraw him from the front line for the second Test. The opposite is the case: Schmidt should not only be sticking with him, he should be helping him. If there is a change to be made, it should be at No9 so that Lynagh can at least play outside McDermott.
After the Test on Saturday, I was in the media huddle talking to him. I wasn’t even sure that he would recognise me. I was certainly aware that here was a young man who had just played the biggest game of his life, so there was a lot on his mind.
Yet when the questions were over, he came to one side, shook my hand and started asking questions: how is the family? How is the old Richmond crowd?
And that may not make him a world-class No10. But it certainly makes him someone to write home about.