Cheers to Sam Maguire, Sydney pores over 'The Incident'

I don't think I ever fully appreciated the extent to which Ireland’s twenty-somethings have flocked to Australia until Sunday night.

After a week in Melbourne, we moved up the road to Sydney for the last leg of this Lions tour, and after dinner on Sunday night, the Irish and English press packs bonded over our collective need to find some TV screens; us for the All-Ireland football final, and them for England’s Euro 2025 final against Spain.

As of 2025, there are a reported 103,000 people born in the Republic of Ireland who are currently living in Australia, and my rough estimation would be that 99% of them were in 'Cheers’ bar on George Street in Sydney on Sunday night.

It felt like being in ‘The Big Tree’ on Dorset Street, with Kerry and Donegal jerseys crammed into what was a pretty large pub. As enjoyable as it was to experience a first All-Ireland from the opposite side of the world, it was jarring to think that this was just a small sample size of two of Ireland’s 32 counties, almost all of whom appeared to be between 20 and 30-years-old.

Much like in Melbourne, the sight of Lions jerseys has been slow to arrive early in the week. Those on the big tour groups tend to travel around the country and explore some of the other things Australia has to offer before moving into the big cities closer to game day.

I’ve been lucky to experience some incredible games in jaw-dropping stadiums in this job, but Saturday night at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was extraordinary.

We had a gunslinging first half where the Lions and Wallabies shared six tries and 40 points, followed by a tense, error-strewn second half where Australia held out until the 80th minute, and while it was a shame that such a game had to be decided by a lengthy TMO decision, it only added to the suspense.

The decision to allow Hugo Keenan’s try hasn’t gone down well here in Australia, and it was all over the back pages at the newsagents in Melbourne airport on Sunday morning, with the Sunday Telegraph in particular leaving their readers in no doubt as to their take (below). It’s not quite on the same level as Thierry Henry’s handball against the Republic of Ireland in 2009, but it’s not far off.

All week, that final play of the game has been dominating the sports conversation in Australia.

On Monday, we went across to the quiet city suburb of Double Bay, where the Wallabies have based themselves for the week, with Nick Frost and Max Jorgensen again having to field questions about what the Australian journalists have simply started calling "The Incident", as if they were here to talk about a chemical spill, or a mass data breach.

They did their best to straight-bat the questions and shift the focus to Saturday’s final game at Accor Stadium but later on Monday, Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh threw petrol onto the flame when he called for "accountability" from World Rugby. As luck would have it, World Rugby Chair Brett Robinson, and CEO Alan Gilpin would be at Sydney harbour the very next day as the organising committee for 2027 World Cup announced its ticketing strategy.

The trio stood together alongside each other during that presentation on Tuesday morning, although we weren’t close enough to eavesdrop on the small talk.

Surprisingly, Gilpin began his address by discussing the elephant in the room, and expressing World Rugby’s "support" for their match officials, although he stopped short of revealing the governing body’s stance on whether or not the officials got that decision right.

"Suffice to say, we won't be taking any further questions on that today, because we’re here to talk about what will be a fantastic ticketing program", Gilpin added, before later taking just under seven minutes worth of questions on it from the assembled media.

The view of Sydney Harbour on Tuesday morning from the Museum of Contemporary Art. Sadly, the rain has now arrived, and is set to be here for the week

Tuesday was a day when Sydney was just showing off. That morning event was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, which offered the most sensational view across the harbour at the Sydney Opera House (see above), and we soon packed our bags to head for Shore School in the lower north side of Sydney, where the Lions were training.

Given Sydney’s layout, the easiest – and cheapest – way from south to north is often by ferry, the price of which was just $1 (roughly €0.57) to get from Circular Quay to Milson’s Point. Pound for pound, there isn’t a better way to see the city, jetting alongside the Opera House and under the Harbour Bridge.

On this tour, the Lions have trained at some impressive schools, and Shore School was the latest of those, where the rugby facilities would leave Ireland’s big-hitters blushing. And then there was the view from the schoolyard (below).

With the series sewn up, there was a sense of fun around the Lions camp, and no mention of ‘The Incident’.

Maro Itoje, normally reluctant to open the curtain to the inner workings of the squad, was in rare form. The players he’s enjoyed getting to know the most? Finlay Bealham, who seems to be one of the most common names appearing on these lists, and Jamie Osborne, whose nickname, Itoje revealed, is ‘Showbiz’.

The people, and those relationships, Itoje said, were what would define this tour for him, rather than the wins and losses.

"There is a verse, that I can’t quite remember what book it is from in the Bible [Mark 8:36], but it says, ‘What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?’" Itoje said, a verse which the uninitiated media pack had only previously encountered in the Alan Partridge movie, ‘Alpha Papa’.

"If we won every game and we absolutely hated one another... I think life is more than that."

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