36 minutes of mayhem: Inside the lightning break that ignited a famous Wallabies win

The exact moment the third Test between the Wallabies and the Lions got crazy – and began a 36-minute break that would help the home side secure a memorable victory – arrived with a beep on a computer screen in the bowels of Accor Stadium.

There, in a secretive operations room called the “VOC” that houses key decision makers from the NSW Police, Venues NSW, security and hirers during major events, a computer system monitoring dangerous weather called “Ubimet” pinged an alert about hazardous stuff nearby.

Namely, lightning strikes. And when a couple landed to the north-west of Sydney Olympic Park, it was time for action. The multiple strikes were registered within 10km of Accor Stadium, which under Venues NSW’s policy meant all people on the field, and in rows 1-19, had to immediately take cover.

The call for a “match stop” was passed from the venue’s chief warden to the match day manager, Mark Philip, on the sideline, who then told referee Nika Amashukeli. At 9.14pm, the Georgian duly told the confused players, who trotted off the field with the game clock paused at 42 minutes.

And so began a highly unusual – and eventful – mid-Test break that saw the Wallabies and the Lions take sharply different approaches to the downtime, which proved decisive after the home team came back out almost 40 minutes later and finished off the Lions.

Early warning

Though remote, the potential for lightning to stop the third Test at a sold-out Accor Stadium was flagged early in the week, via long-range weather forecasts, at operations meetings.

Lightning breaks had, most famously, previously seen a Taylor Swift concert delayed at Accor Stadium in 2024, and six weeks earlier, the Bulldogs-Rabbitohs clash at the Olympic venue saw a 28-minute pause due to lightning. Even a week earlier, the Wallaroos-Wales Test in Brisbane was stopped for 30 minutes.

So while remote, it was real enough for Wallabies coach and fastidious planner Joe Schmidt to discuss in a team meeting the day before the game.

“We had been warned that there might be lightning, so we had a little bit of a plan,” Schmidt said post-game.

Departure and tension

Cyclonic conditions for the third Test game were there well before the lightning arrived, so were the players’ tempers.

When the stoppage occurred early in the second half, the game had already been paused for six minutes due to a nasty concussion for Lions lock James Ryan, suffered while trying to tackle Will Skelton. That had launched the umpteenth scuffle between the sides.

But luckily, tempers had calmed by the time the players scurried up the same narrow tunnel and there was no repeat of heated scenes in the same tunnel at halftime, when players from both sides and at least one Lions assistant coach shouted insults to their rooms, causing concern for security staff about a potential punch-on.

Despite witnesses saying Amashukeli was also sledged by the Lions staffer, it was not enough for the referee to include in his post-match report.

Dressing room juggle

World Rugby’s lightning policy says play can’t be resumed for 30 minutes after the last strike, so broadcasters Nine and Stan Sport now had to pad for their life.

Cameras in the dressing room provided insights into how both slightly baffled teams handled the break. The Wallabies pulled out their rough plan.

“We wanted to make sure that players kept moving, so we had different guys rotating on the bikes,” Schmidt said. “We had four balls in the change room that we were just throwing around, just so they could stay connected.”

Vision showed players changing out of wet gear, doing drills, talking with coaches and Joseph Aukuso-Suaalii with his eyes closed, doing more visualisation. At one point, he and Max Jorgensen juggled tennis balls – and the latter’s sharp reflexes and handling would later come to the fore for a decisive try.

Lion around

Cameras showed the Lions were far less active. Some jumped on exercise bikes, but just most sat and rested. A few even lounged in bean bags.

“Rigor mortis was setting in at one stage there for the lads,” coach Andy Farrell said post-game.

Curiously, star No.10 Finn Russell was even seen scrolling on his phone. Apart from being a questionable choice in the middle of a Test match, where the Lions were aiming to stay undefeated on tour, there was also the matter of World Rugby’s rules.

As with cricket and many other sports, phones can be banned from change rooms during games under World Rugby’s Anti-Corruption and Betting policy, and regulation 6.3.5 (f), and the prohibition was in effect for the Lions tour.

World Rugby subsequently declined to comment on Russell’s phone use and any potential consequences. Informed sources said World Rugby had requested the footage after the game to review, but determined there was no cause for an investigation. It is unknown if Russell and the Lions were issued with a warning.

Coverage and cover-ups

While providing great vision, one of the remotely operated TV cameras in the dressing room went dark after Lions manager, and former Brumbies coach, David Nucifora threw a towel over it.

It attracted less attention, but a towel was also unsuccessfully tossed over a camera in the Wallabies’ rooms, too.

It wasn’t quite a breach of the agreement between the teams and broadcasters, which agreed to the cameras being turned off in the ten minutes before and after games, but turned on during halftime. This weird lightning break was neither, so both parties were in the right and the wrong.

Study buddies

The mid-game break benefited the Wallabies more than the Lions. Big men like Will Skelton and Taniela Tupou – who were minutes away from being replaced when lightning struck – were able to play another 10 minutes after resumption.

“I was enjoying it (the break), I was like, more, man, more – I needed that break, actually,” Tupou said.

One of the more interesting sights in the break was forwards coach Geoff Parling sitting with Wallabies’ lineout captains Nick Frost and Jeremy Williams, poring over a laptop for 20 minutes. They’d seen a weakness, and in the first six Lions’ lineout throws after resumption, Frost stole two of them and Williams stole a third.

In a brutal twist, Lions lock Ollie Chessum was picked off for two steals. His new coach at the Leicester Tigers this month? Parling.

Wallaby gold

After a 26-minute break where fans sang songs, drank hundreds of thousands of dollars of beer, and cheered a handful of pitch invaders, players were allowed back on. No lightning strikes had reset the half-hour clock, and the game ultimately squeezed in minutes under the 11pm venue curfew. Informed sources say the game would have been allowed to finish, even if it went past the curfew.

The Wallabies got out first and did a 10-minute warm-up, but the Lions did just five minutes. The Wallabies duly came back out for a 9.50pm resumption and dominated for the start of the “third half” , and went on to win.

If they don’t have one already, coaches playing in Sydney will now be scrambling to come up with a “lightning plan” – such is the value of being able to handle an unscheduled mid-game break, and return and win.

Lions coach Farrell dismissed the notion his side had lost their edge in the break as “utter rubbish”, but he conceded the Wallabies got it right.

“What came off the back of that is that Australia hit the ground running,” he said.

“And thoroughly deserved their win.”