Mike Catt, the Waratahs attack coach, appears to have had some fun in winding up his former Irish boss Andy Farrell about the state of the pitch at the Allianz Stadium for the Lions’ error-afflicted 21-10 win over the Waratahs.
The tourists’ players and head coach alike made plenty of references to the slippery ball after a game featuring 16 handling errors – of which nine were by the Lions – and evidently they fully believed the Waratahs had watered the pitch in a deliberate tactic to make it more of a level playing field.
“The pitch was very wet and I was asking Mike Catt after the game and he was laughing,” commented the Lions head coach afterwards. “I mean, that’s good tactics from them, isn’t it? That the ball’s slippy, the breakdown’s ferocious enough and the line speed is high-octane stuff as well from them.
“And we kept on trying to overplay at times, certainly around halfway and putting ourselves back under pressure and keeping them in the game really. So, I believe that it could be wet on Wednesday anyway, so we’ll take that.”
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Asked to clarify if he believed the Waratahs had watered the pitch, Farrell said: “I mean, he just laughed. Catty just laughed. We’ve seen that done plenty of times. I don’t know whether the pitch needed watering.”
Apparently Sydney had been by a torrential downpour akin to a cyclone, locally referred to as “a weather bomb”, last Tuesday and into the early hours of Wednesday, when 73 millimetres of rain fell on Sydney. Informed of this, Farrell said: “We know all that, but we have been here for two days now and it has been glorious. The pitch was okay and we are not complaining.”
Farrell went on to state that if the pitch had indeed been additionally watered, then this was all part of the joys of touring.
“It is good, isn’t it? That is what you would do, if you are waiting for this type of game to come it is huge for all the clubs as we have talked about all along and we have got to ... we talk about it all the time, we have got to realise every single game it doesn’t really matter whether we are churning up the games and playing game after game. we know what is coming and we have got to be ready for anything and able to adapt.”
Farrell’s counterpart, Dan McKellar, laughed off suggestions that they had watered the pitch.
“No, no, no. He was probably sunning himself in Brisbane on Tuesday, but no.”
So you didn’t water the pitch?
“No. I’d too much to think about to be worried about watering the pitch.”
The Waratahs captain Hugh Sinclair, after the final game of his professional career, said: “See the weather on Tuesday, that f**king sucked.”
All of this hardly ranks in the same stratosphere as “Watergate” (apologies) but the local media were also adamant that there would have been no need to water the pitch at the Allianz Stadium, which despite only been opened in 2022, is notorious for its awful drainage. Indeed, there was one game in the Super Rugby Pacific in May last year between the Waratahs and the Brumbies which has become part of local folklore.
A pre-interval downpour continued during the break and the drainage was so poor that it was as if a tide was rising in the second-half; the Brumbies eventually aquaplaning to a 29-21 win in fairly farcical conditions.
The stadium truly lives up to its billing as world-class in many levels save for the playing surface, which is also home to the Sydney Roosters of the National Rugby League and Sydney FC of the A-League Men as well as the New South Wales Waratahs.
The atmosphere among the 40,000-pllus crowd in the 45,600-capacity stadium was the best of the Lions’ three games in Australia to date but there is widespread speculation that the pitch will have be dug up and relaid later this year. A similar problem exists at the adjacent Sydney Cricket Ground.
The Lions squad move on to Canberra for next Wednesday’s game against the Brumbies and the forecast is for more rain on Tuesday and Wednesday in the Australian capital.
“It looks like there could be a bit of rain, a 70 per cent chance of rain, which is good for us,” said Farrell. “We need to play in that as well but we also know they are the top side in the Australian division and we also know what happened as far as the Lions is concerned in 2013 so we know it is a big day on Wednesday for us all.”
Meanwhile, Lansdowne, one of the oldest rugby clubs in the world which recently celebrated its 150th anniversary, have been basking in the glow of not only having two of their players chosen to captain the Lions on two matches in the same tour, but also that two of its former players were the two captains in the tourists’ win.
Dan Sheehan, whose brother Bobby is a new signing for Lansdowne next season, led the Lions against the Force a week ago. Tadhg Beirne then followed suit against the Waratahs, and having been a part of Lansdowne’s 2012-13 and 2-14-15 AIL titles, he remains affiliated to the club.
His Waratahs counterpart, the Waratahs number eight Sinclair played for Lansdowne in the 2013-14 season when he won a J1 Cup while also contemplating a professional career on his ensuing return to Australia – which duly happened. Providing both captains in the same match must be a first for any single club on a Lions tour.
“It was awesome,” said Sinclair of his time with Lansdowne. “They are some great humans over there, some great memories. To be fair, I spent a fair bit of time at Coppers during the week. Footy was sort of the backup. But no, it was good fun. They’re just great humans. I loved it.
“I swapped jerseys with Tadhg,” added Sinclair. “I had a yarn to him, mutual friends and what not. Some really good memories.”
Dan McKellar, the Waratahs head coach, also coached Wicklow and asked if he had ever been to Coppers, said: “No, Phil Healy’s at Wicklow, I certainly experienced a number of Guinness there but I didn’t get to Coppers.”
Sinclair also admitted that the degree to which his side had been written off, with speculation as to the kind of cricket score the Lions might amass, had only motivated his side further.
“Yeah, there’s been a fair bit of media coverage about the Lions winning by 50 every week. I saw something about it’s going to be worse than the Tahs losing 96-19 to Crusaders. It get you fired up. It would be nice to get a bit of positivity about Aussie rugby and I know we’ve been struggling a bit but we had a crack tonight. They’re just 23 blokes so why can’t we put pressure on and make a game of it. Hopefully, the Test series is a cracker.”
