{"id":38129,"date":"2025-08-01T12:46:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T12:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/38129\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T12:46:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T12:46:12","slug":"all-blacks-legend-calls-out-joe-schmidts-unacceptable-lions-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/38129\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks legend calls out Joe Schmidt’s ‘unacceptable’ Lions rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir John Kirwan has ripped into Joe Schmidt and the Wallabies after they went 2-0 down in the British and Irish Lions series.<\/p>\n

Australia succumbed 29-26 to the famous touring side in Melbourne last week despite being 18 points ahead on the half-hour mark.<\/p>\n

The Lions<\/a> showed impressive resilience to come back into the match, but Kirwan criticised some of Schmidt\u2019s<\/a> in-game decisions, as well as his comments afterwards.<\/p>\n

Although they have an opportunity to gain some consolation in the third Test in Sydney on Saturday, the series has already been lost.<\/p>\n

\u2018A huge difference\u2019 for the Wallabies<\/p>\n

\u201c[Rob] Valetini and [Will] Skelton made a huge difference. I would not have put them on the GPS,\u201d he said on the Rivals podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI listened to the post-match press conference and\u2026 just run them (Valetini and Skelton) until they can\u2019t run would be my theory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember playing with a guy called Peter Fatialofa, who was the worst trainer but the best player. He would just go and go and go, and keep going.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime and I wouldn\u2019t have taken them off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy Farrell calls out \u2018disgusting\u2019 Lions tour fallout and gives his take on World Rugby\u2019s ruckgate review<\/a><\/p>\n

Although it was later revealed that Valetini had suffered an injury, with Kirwan speaking before Thursday\u2019s team announcement, Skelton was also withdrawn surprisingly early in Test two.<\/p>\n

After their departures, the Lions began to get on top and the Australian<\/a> dam burst in the final 25 minutes with the tourists touching down twice to win the game and the series.<\/p>\n

Following the encounter, Schmidt and captain Harry Wilson stressed that they are a team which is still developing, but the All Blacks legend was disgusted by those comments in the midst of a Lions series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second thing, and what surprised me about the press conference, was the Australians were talking like they are a second-tier nation \u2013 developing young players and getting better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is just bull****, this is Australia, this is one of the best teams in the world. This is the bloody two-time World Cup champions, I just don\u2019t understand the dialogue at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Super Rugby concerns<\/p>\n

Kirwan feels the discussion should be different and he returned to his concerns about Super Rugby and whether it is conducive for getting players ready for Test rugby.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dialogue should be, is Super Rugby now preparing New Zealand and Australia for Test match rugby like the northern hemisphere does?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing out and saying: \u2018We\u2019re a young team, we\u2019re still learning our style of play\u2019, that is not acceptable from a top-tier nation as far as I\u2019m concerned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019ve got to be really careful with that dialogue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt for Australia because I would have loved to have seen them win and it go to the last game, so I was pretty gutted for them, but I don\u2019t like listening to them saying they\u2019re a developing side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it was South Africa, I would say: \u2018Too bad\u2019, if it was New Zealand, I would say: \u2018What are you talking about, we\u2019re a top-tier nation\u2019. That really surprised me.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Sir John Kirwan: Northern hemisphere more \u2018prepared\u2019 for Test rugby as All Blacks legend highlights \u2018biggest concern\u2019 for the south<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir John Kirwan has ripped into Joe Schmidt and the Wallabies after they went 2-0 down in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[428,3481,348,3482,15457,50,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-38129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-australia","tag-british-and-irish-lions","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-joe-schmidt","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}