New Zealand Rugby [NZR] says it is “aligned in principle” with a Rugby Australia [RA] plan to see a combined Wallabies-All Blacks team face the British & Irish Lions as part of their 2025 tour Down Under.
The Lions are due to play three Tests against the Wallabies in Australia and, speaking with the Daily Mail, RA chairman Hamish McLennan revealed he had proposed an additional clash involving players from both Australia and New Zealand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground [MCG].
“We’ve talked to the Kiwis about hosting an ANZAC team against the Lions in 2025 and they’re considering the idea,” McLennan told the Daily Mail.
“I’m in no doubt it would be a belter and we’d sell the MCG out with 100,000 fans.
“The best of the Wallabies and the All Blacks against the Lions would create enormous global coverage.”
While the concept would seemingly have many roadblocks to overcome, not least of which is finding space for it to be played in an already crowded schedule; concerns around player welfare; and All Blacks coaches not wanting to put their players at risk ahead of their own international campaign; an NZR spokesperson confirmed the plan had been discussed.
The spokesperson told ESPN the plan was very much in its “early days”, and that NZR would need to work through exactly how it could fit into the calendar and how the commercial aspects would work.
The Lions previously faced a combined team during their 1989 trip to Australia, winning the game at Ballymore in Brisbane 19-15 having handed the Wallabies a 2-1 series defeat earlier in the tour.
Just three All Blacks players were a part of the squad, with Kieran Crowley, Frano Botica and Steve McDowell the only ones to take part in a combined team that featured Wallabies greats David Campese, Nick Farr-Jones and Michael Lynagh.
The proposal comes despite a frosty atmosphere between the Australian and New Zealand unions in recent months, although McLennan claimed the relationship was back on track.
McLennan had previously claimed Australia could walk away from the fledgling Super Rugby Pacific competition after the 2023 season, saying a return to a domestic competition last seen in 2021 was a distinct possibility unless a more equitable split of the broadcast revenue was agreed with NZR.
“All is good with the Kiwis now, we’re friends again and we’d be happy to give them a cut,” McLennan told the Daily Mail of his MCG plan.
The two parties have been involved in some frosty exchanges this year, but recent reports suggest talks in September were successful and that an agreement would be reached before the end of the year.
The Lions, meanwhile, are due to return to Australia for the first time since 2013 when they defeated the Wallabies 2-1 with a crushing victory in the third Test in Sydney.
A potential match in the Pacific Islands as part of their 2025 tour has also been mooted, though with McLennan keen to drive interest and revenue in Australia such a match could fall victim to the proposed ANZAC plan.
The Wallabies and All Blacks recently faced off against one another in Melbourne, playing in front of a full house across town at Marvel Stadium. The All Blacks emerged victorious with a try after the final siren after French referee Mathieu Raynal had made one of the most controversial calls in Test rugby history by penalising the Wallabies for time-wasting.
Given that sellout crowd, the touring British & Irish fans who were unable to see the Lions as part of their 2021 tour to South Africa due to COVID, and the one-off proposition such an ANZAC team would present, McLennan is right to believe that the concept could draw a huge crowd to the MCG.
— With Reuters