Sometimes in sport, as in life, you get what you deserve and at the Soldier Field on Saturday Andy Farrell's side did just that. For anyone to suggest anything otherwise is deluding themselves to reality. While I hate the much-used expression 'fail to prepare, prepare to fail,' our opening match of the Autumn series on Saturday in Chicago was that to a tee.
New Zealand were the Rugby Championship's fastest starters and Australia the slowest. So for the Wallabies to be 13-3 down after 15 minutes surprised few. The men in black were red hot from the get-go, moving with cohesion and precision, each pass and kick a dagger. Australia were back-pedalling, making mistakes, losing collisions. Caleb Clarke had cried through the anthems but his tears had dried in time to finish a slick catch and pass in the fourth minute.
I'll never forget standing on the sideline of our first SaberCats match, watching one of our players get leveled by a brutal tackle. Most people would've stayed down. He didn't. He fought for every inch, rolled and kept driving the ball forward. The crowd erupted. That image stuck with me. In rugby, getting hit is part of the game, and when you get hit, you don't stop - you adapt mid-impact.
It's been a tough year for Marlie Packer, who had her captaincy taken away and faced self-doubt about her World Cup selection despite being a former world player of the year.
In 2025, we have not yet seen the best of Kinghorn − although, after a few errors against the First Nations and Pasifika XV, the Scot was strong off the bench in the second Test and started the third.
Maro Itoje's leadership in the series-clinching victory showcased his potential among British & Irish Lions greats. Leading the Lions to a series victory, he demonstrated calmness and character under pressure.
Huw Jones replaces Ringrose in the starting lineup after the latter reported symptoms during training, alongside changes to the forwards with Porter and Chessum coming in.
You've just got to kind of bank what's happened in the past in that game one ... we've got to not necessarily start again, but we've got to build on what we've started and making sure that under pressure we deliver that in the 80 minutes on the weekend.
The Lions is an idea that gets passed on from one generation to the next, follow it back long enough and you'll end up at two men who were born and bred in this very club, Willie John McBride and Syd Millar, who did as much as anyone to make the team into what they are today.
Genge's journey from being inexperienced to influential in international rugby shows remarkable growth, highlighted by pivotal moments in his career against Australia.
