Aussie coach calls it a day

With unerring timing, Rod Macqueen kept his ace in the hole until arguably the best moment possible. The Australian players having returned to the dressing-room in the throes of a series-levelling win, Macqueen announced that he was bringing forward his retirement. The decider in Sydney would be the last game for Macqueen, Australia's most successful coach of all time.

"I believe it's time for a fresh approach for the team and it seems that now is an appropriate time. We've planned for Eddie Jones to come in, he's ready to go on from here. From my perspective, I'm really looking forward to this last game and when I reflect on my career I've enjoyed every moment. I've got no regrets. We've got a game to win next week and that's the most important thing on my mind.

"It's always better to go a little earlier than a little later," added Macqueen, in one of the truisms of sport. "I'm pleased to be making this decision after a win and not after a loss I might add." John Eales was obliged to pay tribute to Macqueen a little prematurely.

"Rod's been a huge figure in Australian rugby over the last four years. And both on a personal basis and also from the team's perspective he's contributed so much to the game. Where we are today, a lot of it is down to Rod. So the team is very thankful for that and certainly we'd like to send him out with a win." Macqueen leant forward and smiled a little sheepishly at this point to say: "I might add on that if I could, that it's not about me next week, it's about the team, it's about Australia and it's about pride. So we won't be talking about winning the game for me, I can assure you." Of course they won't be talking that up. They don't have to. At the back of their minds too they'll be mindful of doing it for Eales, while even the 25-year-old Joe Roff is taking a sabattical from the game to play in Biarritz next season.

"He wants a break from test rugby in a more relaxed and changed environment while he's still young he says, as opposed to obtaining a retirement package in Europe like so many thirty somethings from the southern hemisphere.

"Joe Roff is a great player and he's still very young," observed Eales on Saturday. "Hopefully it will be for just a short sojourn." The force is with the Wallabies now and no mistake. It's funny how it can all change, and how the pivotal moment can seemingly come exactly mid-way through the second match of a three-match series.

One play and everything is turned around. Just like that. Perhaps as John Eales said that is the nature of big-time sport. "Games at this level between teams of this standard always hinge on such small things."

Graham Henry maintained that the biggest factor in the Lions defeat "was that we didn't take our opportunities in the first-half. If we'd taken those opportunities and got that momentum perhaps the Australians wouldn't have had the confidence to come back at that point. When we did break through, we didn't have players on shoulders, we didn't look after the ball, we threw 50-50 passes.

We just had to be a bit more clinical. Really coming in at half-time we probably needed to be a few more points ahead than we were."

In having to regroup this week the role of the senior players such as Martin Johnson is going to be more important than ever. "It's probably going to be more mental than physical," said the Lions captain.

"We're at the end of a hard tour and a hard season, and we've got to rally ourselves for one last massive effort. We need to get our heads up very quickly and keep the belief that we've had throughout the tour. We've only had one bad half of football in two test matches really."