Advertisement League of Ireland Horse Racing TV Listings GAA Fixtures The Video Review Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture Rugby Weekly Extra Dive into all the news and analysis 3 times a week The Football Family Weekly insights from the week’s big talking points Advertisement More Stories AnalysisSuperpowers Soaring Suaalii, jackal king McReight, and Joe's plays The Wallabies have a few major strengths that will worry the Lions. 11.01pm, 18 Jul 2025 Share options Murray Kinsella Reports from Brisbane THIS ONE SHOULD be riveting right from the very kick-off of the opening Test [KO 11am Saturday, Sky Sports]. Especially if the Wallabies are taking it and Joseph Suaalii is chasing it. England suffered hugely at the hands of the athletic Australian outside centre on his rugby union debut last autumn. Suaalii won back the very first restart he chased in union, soaring above Lions captain Maro Itoje to bat the ball back and allow Australia to attack. We can see here that Itoje has two lifters in his vicinity, but the English trio don’t get into position quickly. As we can see below, Itoje isn’t really being lifted at all. Against a jumper as freakish as Suaalii, you need to be lifted if you’re going to win the ball. England struggled to adjust last November, with Suaalii continuing to do damage as he won another couple of restarts for the Wallabies with his stunning leap and skill in the air. Most damagingly, Suaalii’s presence forced a knock-on from Itoje after the game had essentially been won by England. All they had to do was gather the restart, play for a few seconds, and kick the ball off the pitch. Itoje nearly claims the ball as the Wallabies go short, but he spills it forward. The Australians conjure a sensational try from the ensuing scrum and win the game. Suaalii’s success in this area against England put everyone else on notice but it’s worth pointing out that Wallabies fullback Tom Wright had success against Wales the following weekend when Suaalii was on the bench. This was the kick-off in Cardiff, with Wright sent haring down the middle to bat the ball back for early Wallabies possession. So Suaalii is not the only aerial weapon the Wallabies have. He returned to the starting XV the following weekend against Scotland and resumed his imposing presence on restarts, again coming up with a couple of big wins for the Wallabies. The only game he didn’t have major restart success in was the final game of the autumn Tests against Andy Farrell’s Ireland, who dealt with the Australian tactics superbly. Suaalii gets a hand to the first Australian restart of the game but we can see that Ireland have taken positions around the contest to try and win the scraps as the ball comes down. When that happens, Finlay Bealham pounces on it. Robbie Henshaw, who is good in the air, is the man tasked with trying to catch the restart, while Josh van der Flier is attached to him as a single lifter. That pairing comes up trumps for Ireland on the second Wallabies restart. Van der Flier’s lift obviously gives Henshaw extra height but the key detail is that the Irish centre catches the ball overhead, reaching his hands up to greet it before Suaalii can get his hand in to bat it. Advertisement Tommy Freeman has generally taken up this central fielding position for the Lions on restarts and he will probably need to call on his overhead catching skills if the Wallabies come hunting in that area. Suaalii and co. switched up their approach against Ireland, shifting restarts out to the right-hand side where they had such success against England. But Ireland handled it well, getting their two lifters into position early so they had a height advantage over Suaalii. Suaalii is still up in the contest but even with his leaping power, it’s difficult to compete against a double-lifted second row. James Ryan manages to hold onto the ball despite Suaalii”s challenge here. And then it’s Tadhg Beirne who claims the final Wallabies restart in brilliant fashion. The jump and lift are less smooth this time, so Beirne has to show great skill to take the ball at full stretch overhead with Suaalii in the vicinity. This all underlines that even though Ireland did a good job negating Suaalii’s restart threat, he still caused them great stress. And the Wallabies found a different way for his aerial threat to have a big impact on the game, as we see below. On first phase from a lineout just outside Ireland’s 22, the Wallabies launch a contestable bomb through scrum-half Jake Gordon. It’s Henshaw and fullback Hugo Keenan who contest with Suaalii and we can see below that Bundee Aki takes up a position close to the contest to try and win the scraps. However, the bounce favours the Wallabies this time as Suaalii hoovers it up. The Australians are in behind Ireland and they score a few phases later through left wing Max Jorgensen. The Lions have probably accepted that Suaalii will have some aerial wins against them, so they’ll have put plenty of focus on their ability to win the scraps and react well to snap into defensive shape in these moments when the Wallabies can be so dangerous. For the rest of us, the contest in the air will be intriguing. The Lions have their own threats in players like Freeman and Keenan, so we should be in for a treat. One of the Wallabies’ other superstrengths is openside flanker Fraser McReight’s ability at the breakdown. The 26-year-old is one of the leading jackals in rugby and it would be no surprise if we learn later that someone has been wearing a red and white scrum cap like his in Lions training. They’ll be hugely focused on negating his qualities, especially given that he made four breakdown turnovers against Farrell’s Ireland side in November. We see the first one above as McReight shows his remarkable speed and accuracy in getting over the ball, but also his ability to read play. He starts this phase as the second defender out from a touchline ruck. As Ireland run a phase involving a sweep pass from their 3-man pod before a carry in their 2-man pod, McReight identifies the probable point of the carry. McReight recognises that if Ireland’s connecting back between the 3-pod and the 2-pod, Bundee Aki in this instance, is tackled, then the carrier is likely to be isolated. That proves to be the case as he swoops up to get straight on the ball before Andrew Porter can clear him away, with ball carrier Bealham penalised for holding on. McReight continued to lay siege on Ireland’s possession from there, with his second poach directly resulting in three points for the Wallabies. McReight shows his remarkable accuracy and speed in the instance above, when it initially looks like he won’t have a dab at the ball given that scrum-half Gordon is over the tackle. There’s a split-second window before Keenan and Beirne arrive at high speed – having initially identified Gordon as the threat – but McReight gets his hands on the ball, then shows fantastic balance and strength to stay on his feet. McReight’s next poach again directly results in three points as he strikes on first phase of an Irish lineout attack. Again, the window of opportunity is minuscule here, but that’s all McReight needs. Even the slightest separation between carrier and support player is an invitation to the Wallabies’ openside. Just minutes later, McReight strikes again as the Wallabies defend in their 22. This time, he is involved in completing the tackle, pulling Beirne down to the ground before he reloads onto the ball. Garry Ringrose is close to Beirne but not close enough because McReight only needs that split second to get his hands on the ball. In this instance, his poach is almost comical because he’s looking at referee Andrea Piardi as he completes it. There’s no penalty this time, with McReight making a rare clean turnover. Farrell and the Lions won’t have missed the fact that McReight picked up where he left off in Test rugby with a pair of breakdown steals against Fiji two weekends ago. As with their restart receipt, the Lions have had issues with their attacking breakdown work during their warm-up games, so they will need to be razor sharp there tomorrow. The Lions will also need to be uber alert on set-piece defence, given Joe Schmidt’s penchant for creating clever plays. Funnily enough, Farrell’s Ireland tried to use one of Schmidt’s classic plays against him in November, only to be stung by the Wallabies coach having his players ready. This is on second phase of an Irish lineout attack as Jamison Gibson-Park runs a dummy loop around Caelan Doris, who instead passes back inside to Robbie Henshaw running a disguised line. Schmidt first unveiled this play way back in 2012 while still coaching Leinster and has used variations of it ever since, often with devastating effect. So it was cheeky of Farrell and his backs coach Andrew Goodman, also now with the Lions, to throw it at Schmidt’s Wallabies, who were clearly well prepared as prop Taniela Tupou held his ground and picked off Doris’ inside pass. Perhaps Schmidt has a new version of this classic ready to go against the Lions but whatever the exact plays, the Wallabies boss probably has something clever up his sleeve. WALLABIES: Tom Wright; Max Jorgensen, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Len Ikitau, Harry Potter; Tom Lynagh, Jake Gordon; James Slipper, Matt Faessler, Allan Alaalatoa; Nick Frost, Jeremy Williams; Nick Champion de Crespigny, Fraser McReight, Harry Wilson (captain). Replacements: Billy Pollard, Angus Bell, Tom Robertson, Tom Hooper, Carlo Tizzano, Tate McDermott, Ben Donaldson, Andrew Kellaway. LIONS: Hugo Keenan; Tommy Freeman, Huw Jones, Sione Tuipulotu, James Lowe; Finn Russell, Jamison Gibson-Park; Ellis Genge, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong; Maro Itoje (captain), Joe McCarthy; Tadhg Beirne, Tom Curry, Jack Conan. Replacements: Rónan Kelleher, Andrew Porter, Will Stuart, Ollie Chessum, Ben Earl, Alex Mitchell, Marcus Smith, Bundee Aki Referee: Ben O’Keeffe [New Zealand]. Murray Kinsella Send Tip or Correction Embed this post To embed this post, copy the code below on your site Email “Soaring Suaalii, jackal king McReight, and Joe's plays”. 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