Schmidt still positive on 2025 Lions visit

SPOTLIGHT: Australia head coach Joe Schmidt remained upbeat about their chances against the British and Irish Lions despite going down to Scotland by 13-27 at Murrayfield on Sunday.

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Australia arrived in Europe following a disappointing Rugby Championship campaign, in which they lost five Tests out of six.

With former Ireland head coach Schmidt having succeeded Eddie Jones following a disastrous second spell with the Wallabies, where the two-time former world champions crashed out during the pool stage of RWC 2023.

Those results all led to forecasts of a Lions’ whitewash during next year’s three-Test series in Australia.

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Australia, however, launched their November campaign with a last-gasp 42-37 win over England and followed that up with a 52-20 hammering of a struggling Wales.

But hopes of equalling the celebrated 1984 Wallabies’ sweep of the ‘Home Nations’ were dashed by a Scotland outfit which is captained by Melbourne-born Sione Tuipulotu.

The 27-year-old centre scored the only try of the first stanza before Scotland teammates Duhan van der Merwe, Josh Bayliss and Finn Russell dotted down after the break.

Test debutant Harry Potter’s late try was nothing more than a consolation score for Australia.

Schmidt, however, was encouraged by Australia’s progress ahead of next week’s meeting with Ireland in Dublin – a team he knows all too well.

Andy Farrell, promoted from assistant coach under Schmidt to the head coaching position, will be in charge of the Lions.

“I think the context is still pretty positive, because Scotland will contribute, I’ve no doubt, a number of players [to the Lions],” Schmidt told reporters.

“I know Faz [Andy Farrell] well, and I’m not trying to pick his team, by the way. I just think there’s some guys who played really well in that game today.”

The New Zealander added: “What I’m hoping is that people do see it as a real contest next July, because I think we’re building a little bit of momentum,” the explained.

“I always said from the start it would never be linear, because high performance, it just isn’t.”

Scotland, having pushed South Africa hard before losing 32-15 to the world champions earlier this month were desperate to end their 2024 with a “statement win” over a major team ahead of next year’s Six Nations.

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Tuipulotu insisted Scotland always knew they had the beating of Australia.

“The feeling throughout the week is we were pretty confident we’re a better team than this Wallabies team,” he said, adding: “I think the scary thing for this group is that that’s probably just a six or seven out of ten performance against a pretty good team.”

Tuipulotu said Sunday’s match was “super special” as his 77-year-old Greenock-born grandmother Jaqueline Thomson – by whom he is eligible for Scotland – was among the Murrayfield crowd and presented him with the Hopetown Cup, the trophy now up for grabs when the Dark Blues play the Wallabies.

“I don’t really score many tries, so that one was pretty special to score while my grandma was here and knowing how much she also wanted to beat Australia,” he said.

Tuipulotu was on the receiving end of a fearsome tackle from rising Wallaby star Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii that saw him go off injured after just 31 minutes.

“To be honest, I didn’t really know it was him that hit me because it felt humongous,” laughed Tuipulotu.

“When I popped up, I was just kind of looking around at who it was and then I saw that he was on the ground, so I said something to him and then he went off the pitch.”