Outspoken pundit Matt Williams has hit out at the notion that the Test series between the Wallabies and British and Irish Lions was not a success.<\/p>\n
The former Scotland head coach believes that it was a \u201craging success\u201d and hailed the Wallabies for their remarkable improvement after an awful performance against Fiji prior to the series.<\/p>\n
False narrative<\/p>\n
Williams<\/a> pointed to the number of tries and points scored on previous tours compared to 2025 to \u201cexpose many of the falsehoods being tossed about\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the 2021 tour of South Africa<\/a>, the tour games averaged a staggering 45 points and the horridly negative tactics of both teams meant that the Lions<\/a> only managed to average 16 points in the Test matches,\u201d he wrote in his Irish Times column.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the 2025 tour of Australia<\/a>, the Lions averaged 39 points in the tour games. So on this tour the Lions scored fewer points against the Australian provincial teams than they did in their 2013 and 2021 tours and only two points more than in South Africa in 2009.<\/p>\n \u201cYet the false narrative from the loud and aggressive would have you believe that on this tour the Australians were so weak that the Lions\u2019 scores have been overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n Rassie Erasmus and Matt Williams feud heats up as Springboks boss accused of \u2018playing the man again\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Williams states that because of the Wallabies\u2019 unexpected success against the tourists, the \u201cloud and aggressive\u201d voices have now turned on their own and are \u201ctwisting the truth\u201d by claiming that the Lions were below standard.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only grave error that the Lions organisation and their supporters made is that they forgot that the tour was as much for Australia as it was for the Lions,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n \u201cThe narrative that this tour was somehow not a raging success for both the Lions and Rugby Australia is deeply false.<\/p>\n \u201cConsider that 453,167 people attended matches across this exceptional tour. A record for the Lions. The second Test at the MCG held the highest attendance ever for a Lions match. The Tests produced some brilliant rugby in a highly competitive series that generated bundles of cash for the four Lions nations and has bailed Australia out of a financial quagmire. One estimate of profit sits at AUS$51 million (\u20ac28.5 million).\u201d<\/p>\n