{"id":21499,"date":"2025-08-03T13:09:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/lions-vs-australia-gibson-park-shines-russell-struggles-in-defeat\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T13:09:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:09:18","slug":"lions-vs-australia-gibson-park-shines-russell-struggles-in-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/rugby\/lions-vs-australia-gibson-park-shines-russell-struggles-in-defeat\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions vs Australia: Gibson-Park Shines, Russell Struggles in Defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"The British and Irish Lions failed to complete the series sweep against Australia in a chaotic third Test in Sydney, falling 22-12 at Accor Stadium.\n\nJoe Schmidt&#8217;s team showed passion, emotion, and determination, dominating much of the match, especially in the lineout and the initial scrums.\n\nWhile it wasn&#8217;t the Lions&#8217; best performance, with the series already secured, they could be forgiven for slowing down a bit. Perhaps that&#8217;s what makes a sweep so difficult.\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>As it happened: Lions denied series sweep<\/li><li>Match report: Australia 22-12 British and Irish Lions<\/li><\/ul>\n\nThe Lions would have been the first team in over 50 years to achieve this, but they encountered difficulties in the humid conditions.\n\nAn early advantage for Australia, thanks to a try by Dylan Pietsch and Tom Lynagh&#8217;s kick, meant they could never dominate the match as they did in much of the previous two Tests.\n\nThere were also head injuries in the first half for captain Maro Itoje and winger Tommy Freeman, and neither returned after HIA assessments.\n\nIt was a match that had it all, from a weather delay to near fights. But, how did each Lions player perform in the series finale?\n\n\n<p><b>Andrew Porter, prop<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRATING: 6\n\nHe was overpowered by Taniela Tupou in the scrum and Australia found it quite easy to get under his skin.\n\n\n<p><b>Dan Sheehan, hooker<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRATING: 7\n\nStunning as always. He loves wide spaces and made good ground in them again. The Lions struggled at the lineout, but Sheehan is arguably the best hooker in the world right now.\n\n<b>Tadhg Furlong, prop<\/b>\n\nRATING: 6\n\nStrong in defense, but struggled to make an impact after the weather interruption.\n\n<b>Maro Itoje, second row<\/b>\n\nRATING: 7\n\nI was getting into the game well before his head injury. Not much to see, but he looked solid when he was on the field.\n\n<b>James Ryan, second row<\/b>\n\nRATING: 6\n\nIt probably didn&#8217;t have the physical impact he would have wanted after being given a starting position against a very determined Australian pack.\n\n\n<p><b>Tadhg Beirne, flanker<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRATING: 6.5\n\nIt wasn&#8217;t as impactful as in the second Test, but it was solid enough in good conditions. He had problems in the lineout.\n\n\n<p><b>Tom Curry, flanker<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRATING: 7\n\nHe won a couple of big ground duels and made some important tackles, but another who got a little distracted by the off-the-ball niggles.\n\n\n<p><b>Jack Conan, No. 8<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRATING: 7.6\n\nIt was difficult for him to move forward and it did not have the impact it had in the previous two Tests.\n\n\n<p><b>Jamison Gibson-Park, scrum-half<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRATING: 8\n\nHe controlled things well considering the terrible conditions. He also made a smart play to stop a certain try from Dylan Pietsch at the end.\n\n\n<p><b>Finn Russell, fly-half<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRATING: 6\n\nIt seemed to struggle with the conditions with some handling errors and, at times, trying a little too hard to make the team work. Named player of the series, which was well deserved.\n\n\n<p><b>Bundee Aki, inside centre<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRATING: 6.5\n\nIt seemed like he lacked rhythm at times and struggled to deal with the Australian centers who seemed sharp at all times.\n\n<b>Huw Jones, outside center<\/b>\n\nRATING: 7\n\nCalm during the game, but didn&#8217;t make many mistakes. Once again, overshadowed by the opposition&#8217;s centers.\n\n<b>Blair Kinghorn, left wing<\/b>\n\nRATING: 8\n\nHe seemed animated with his first touches. Not in his preferred position, so it would have been good to see him at fullback, but safe hands anyway. He would have wanted more ball.\n\n<b>Tommy Freeman, Right Wing<\/b>\n\nRATING: 7\n\nHe had a couple of good runs at the beginning considering he hasn&#8217;t trained much this week. Another one who didn&#8217;t return after the break due to a failed HIA.\n\n\n<p><b>Hugo Keenan, fullback<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRATING: 8\n\nIt always seems to be in the right position and cleaned up well in the conditions. It never seemed to be under pressure and always seems to have time with the ball.\n\n\n<p><b>Substitutes:<\/b><\/p>\n\n\nRonan Kelleher: 5.5 &#8211; Yellow carded when he came on. Failed to make a big impact.\n\nEllis Genge: 8 &#8211; Impacted and got physical with Taniela Tupuo, which was necessary.\n\nWill Stuart: 7.5 &#8211; Scored a try and will take a lot from the tour as a whole. Would have been good to see more of him, but he looked solid throughout.\n\nOllie Chessum: 8 &#8211; Handled his early introduction well and did a solid job.\n\nJac Morgan: 9 &#8211; He had a great impact when he came on. It would have been good to see him start.\n\nBen Earl: n\/a\n\nAlex Mitchell: n\/a\n\nOwen Farrell: 6 &#8211; It wasn&#8217;t his best, but he got into the game early and fought to catch up. The weather disruption wouldn&#8217;t have helped.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The British and Irish Lions failed to complete the series sweep against Australia in a chaotic third Test in Sydney, falling 22-12 at Accor Stadium. Joe Schmidt&#8217;s team showed passion, emotion, and determination, dominating much of the match, especially in the lineout and the initial scrums. While it wasn&#8217;t the Lions&#8217; best performance, with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[428,886,203,679],"class_list":{"0":"post-21499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-british-and-irish-lions","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-test"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}