‘We need to punch holes’: Maro Itoje calls on Lions to take battle to Brumbies

A verdict has finally been reached in the “mushroom murder” trial that gripped the whole of Australia, but the jury is still out on the touring British & Irish Lions. With the first Test looming next week, now would be a perfect time to issue an emphatic statement and the captain, Maro Itoje, is urging his well-stacked team to do exactly that.

There have been glimpses of some highly effective Lions combinations at various stages on their travels, even in defeat against Argentina back in Dublin when their attacking shape showed initial promise. What has held them back, aside from every Lions squad’s perpetual search for cohesion, has been an occasional tendency to play too laterally rather than going route one and blowing the front door off its hinges.

With the bulk of their likely Test XV picked en masse for this final midweek fixture before the series which kicks off in Brisbane on Saturday week, Itoje and the management are now looking to rectify that against Australia’s highest‑ranked Super Rugby franchise. The Brumbies will be lacking eight Wallaby squad members but the ACT head coach, Stephen Larkham, has been quietly plotting how best to frustrate the Lions for several weeks.

The home side did exactly that in the corresponding fixture 12 years ago, while in 2001 the Lions scraped home deep in added time, battling back from 22-10 down to sneak a 30-28 win thanks to a late Austin Healey try converted by Matt Dawson. This time the Lions have beefed up their selection and Itoje wants a more direct, purposeful approach than was forthcoming against the NSW Waratahs last Saturday.

“That’s definitely the ambition,” said Itoje, who sat out the Waratahs game but was outstanding against the Queensland Reds in Brisbane. “Rugby doesn’t change too much, whether it’s under-14s rugby or the Lions. You have to go forward, you have to earn the right to go wide. And that is definitely the case for us. We need to punch holes and get ‘go forward’. Then space opens up, wherever that may be.

“There were areas over the past two or three games that were very good and areas that were not quite as good as we’d have liked. We don’t want to be a team that’s constantly reviewing things and constantly saying: ‘We need to do this better.’ We want to learn quickly and move forward.”

Bundee Aki is among the players expected to make an impact in the Lions attack. Photograph: Dan Sheridan/Inpho/Shutterstock

The Lions’ wishlist will definitely include a faster start, regardless of the forecast cold conditions and a slippery ball, and greater urgency at key moments. “We want to start big and maintain that throughout the whole game,” Itoje said. “We want our big ball carriers to get over the gain line, to aggressively attack holes.

“When you do that, opportunities tend to open up. People like Bundee Aki, Ellis Genge, Jack Conan, big Joe McCarthy, etc. We want these guys to be punching at the line … we want to be as dominant as we possibly can. We know the Brumbies are going to be tough but we want to put our best foot forward individually and collectively.”

Not a huge amount of room for misinterpretation there. France’s Pierre Brousset, who refereed Australia’s narrow win against Fiji on Sunday, will be the man in the middle and Joe Schmidt, the Wallaby head coach, is also in town for the game.

Itoje, for one, can sense the Wallabies series hurtling towards him and his team – “It all seems to whizz by” – and the Lions know they cannot afford to be slow out of the blocks. For individuals such as Ollie Chessum and Tom Curry, in particular, Test starting places are going to rely on the visiting pack cranking up the volume in Australia’s understated capital.

And while Itoje’s squad have been encouraged to have some fun between games – the captain says he already regrets his decision to allow Aki to join the tour fines committee – there was a serious edge to the assistant coach Johnny Sexton’s eve-of-game address as a chill wind blew across the exposed pitch behind him. “They’ve obviously spoken about how they’ve seen some chinks in our armour and how they’re going to go after us so we need to make sure we show them some different pictures.

“These games stick in people’s memories despite it not being as important as the Test. So you’ve got to make the most of every opportunity you have in the jersey. It’s about us realising there’ll be a greasy ball and that the Brumbies will play with a good bit of line speed to try and make things as hard as they can for us. They’ve put in good performances against us in the past and we expect another one.”