AUSSIES IN FINN INFESTED WATERS

Lions Verdict

- ANDY DUNN

THANKFULLY, rugby does not make a big statistical deal about assists.

Recently, there was some sort of online poll that asked football followers to choose the best assist in history, as if they had seen them all.

Unsurprisingly, it was a Lionel Messi effort - the Argentina star's outrageous reverse pass for Nahuel Molina against Holland at the last World Cup - that got the nod.

If rugby fans were voting in similar fashion today, then Finn Russell's masterpiece of a pass that set up the first try of this Test series would surely be a contender to top the poll.

Delivered with whip-crack, short-armed speed, the spinning, looping delivery took out three Australian defenders, allowing Sione Tuipulotu (top with Russell) to go over almost untouched.