British & Irish Lions boss Andy Farrell has told his players to prepare for the biggest game of their lives after delivering a damning verdict on an aspects of the 24-19 win over First Nations & Pasifika XV that he wasn’t happy with.
The Lions can wrap up the three-game series against the Wallabies a game early with a win at the MCG on Saturday, and Farrell accepts there is still plenty of room for improvement after having flaws in their game exposed.
He warns that the Wallabies will come at them hard to avoid a humiliating series-ending defeat on home soil with a game to spare.
“We need plenty of improvement to get to the point where a win is on the cards, but we know Australia will improve a lot. If you can’t get up for what’s coming, we are all in the wrong place.
“To me, this is the biggest game of our lives, that’s everyone one of us that’s part of our squad, so we will make sure that we address the week like that,” he said.
Farrell wasn’t entirely happy with his side despite them maintaining their unbeaten record in Australia, accusing his side of treating the game like an exhibition match after racing into a 14-point lead.
“I thought 14 points up and finding space everywhere we started to play the game a little bit like an exhibition match, and it was never going to be like that.
“We hadn’t earned the right to play. There was a lure of space that we thought was there, but it wasn’t there because we found space nice and early. We kept playing out of the back and big wide passes.
“We were getting hit behind the gain line and making it tough for ourselves, especially when they were getting so many people off the line and putting people through the ruck.
“It’s very hard to control the ruck when you are going backwards. We just needed to keep on playing the game that’s in front of us, and at times, the space wasn’t there.
“So we needed to do the right thing and play in the right parts of the field. We were our own worst enemy once or twice, so we need to be better than that.
“I was pretty pleased with how we re-addressed that at half-time and started to show some proper intent in our game, whether we got the rewards from it is a different story, but we fought our way back into the game.
“To cut a long story short, I’m delighted for a lot of lads who’ve just played their first game on tour. I’m delighted to keep the Ws rolling,” Farrell added.
