Beware the wounded Wallaby.
Australia might be 2-0 down but they are more determined than ever ahead of the final Test of the Qatar Airways British & Irish Lions Men's Tour to Australia 2025, according to winger Max Jorgensen.
The British & Irish Lions celebrated a series victory on Saturday after Hugo Keenan’s late try completed a comeback for the ages at the MCG.
After defeat in the first Test, Australia came out firing in the second and James Slipper, Jake Gordon and Tom Wright all scored tries to send the more than 90,000-strong crowd wild.
The Lions hit back, however, with Tom Curry and Huw Jones dotting down to back-up Dan Sheehan’s earlier effort, before Keenan’s last-gasp try clinched the series.
The Lions now have a shot at a 3-0 series win at Accor Stadium in Sydney, but winger Jorgensen is hoping Australia can use the pain of defeat to deny the tourists a famous win.
"All the boys are pretty gutted after that result," he said. "We put in such a big effort. We were leading for 79 minutes of the game.
"It's a tough pill to swallow. I think everyone knows that, but obviously there's a big focus on this weekend now.
"To have to wait another 12 years to have the chance of getting a series win, it's obviously devastating. You sort of look at it and you go, what could have been [or] how different it could have been.
"If we got some things in that game go right and we improve on our game, it could have been so different. To see them celebrate, it really does hurt.
"Straight after the game, it was pretty low. But as the time goes on, that's footy.
"You've got to put it behind you and really focus on this weekend. You can't sit here and complain about what happened on the weekend.
“I think the boys have really changed the mindset to focusing on this weekend and getting that job done." Australia head coach Joe Schmidt will have to make at least one change to his team, with winger Harry Potter ruled out after suffering a hamstring injury.
"It's devastating for Potts to go down with a hammy injury like that," Jorgensen added.
"I've been there before and really feel for him. He's a very, very experienced player and a very good player. It's really tough to see him head out of camp and stay down in Melbourne.
"I don't think anyone likes seeing injuries. It's a pretty tough thing to watch and just wish him all the best for his rehab."
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Meanwhile, second-row Nick Frost believes Australia should have put the second Test to bed and not given the Lions a chance of victory.
The Wallabies were 23-5 ahead before the Lions’ rally and he says, with a couple of tweaks, it bodes well for what is to come in the highly-anticipated finale.
He’ said: "Jorgo said we were leading for 79 minutes and there's so many moments where we could have capitalised on a bit more on those touch points that we've got to go back and review on with how can we be better in different facets of the game.
"We had a pretty decent lead in that first half and we gave away a few tries for half-time. There's key moments that it doesn't always come down to the rest of us or right at the end. So there's a whole span of things that are in our favour that we can control.
"There's so many things that we did well, but there's so many things that we could do a lot better on and especially improve.
“I think that's something as a team that we need to minimise those gaps from having good parts of the game, but then poorer parts. We need to make those margins smaller.”
