Maro Itoje names ‘destructive’ area of improvement in ‘last chance’ Test
Dan Biggar and Maro Itoje talk Lions
British and Irish Lions captain Maro Itoje has stated that his teammates “owe it to one another” to put in a performance on Saturday as they face the Wallabies in their final series Test.
The tourists have already won the series, but will want to return home with a three-nil victory in the bag as they look to improve upon their last Lions tour win of 12 years ago when they defeated the Wallabies 2-1.
As alluded to previously, this is arguably a much weaker Wallabies side than in the previous tour, so despite achieving victory in the opening two Test matches, Itoje is still expecting more from his men in Sydney this weekend.
Maro Itoje expects more
“I am happy with the results,” Itoje told Sky Sports. “But the thing is, whilst we are happy with the results of the last two games, and whilst we’ve played extremely well in patches, there’s still a feeling that there’s more to come from the group, and there’s still a feeling that this team can perform better.
“So this is our last opportunity. This group of men, this team, will never be together again in the same shape and form in terms of personnel, etc, so it’s our last chance.
“We owe it to one another to really rip in and give the best account of ourselves. It’s amazing when you put it like that, that this team will never, ever be the same, never have this opportunity again.
“We definitely want to start better. We want to be more disciplined in the first half. We just want to show each other what we’re about; we want to put together phases and be destructive in our collision work. We just want to build on that and have a more cohesive and complete performance.”
Dan Biggar on the “epic” second test
Reflecting on the second Test, former Lions and Wales fly-half Dan Biggar said: “It was just an epic Test match. A lot of people had been saying the tour had needed something to give it a bit of a boost.
“Last Saturday at the MCG, over 90,000 people in the stadium, one of the great Lions Test matches in terms of jeopardy, intensity, physicality, not knowing who was going to win up until the last minute, last play of the game. It just gave the tour and the series a real boost in terms of excitement, in terms of jeopardy, in terms of everything that a Lions tour should be.
“After the Brisbane Test match in week one, it just felt like it needed something else. It needed a little bit more. And last Saturday, the MCG certainly delivered that.”
Reflecting on the celebrations from the Lions players, Biggar concluded: “We haven’t seen a huge amount of the Lions players knocking about in Sydney. I think they’re probably still nursing a few hangovers and resting up a little bit, but I’m sure we’ll see them about in the next day or so.”
