This is Leicestershire --Leicester Tigers' Australian flanker Julian Salvi believes the British & Irish Lions' series win in his home country was a "massive achievement".
The 27-year-old said he was naturally disappointed with his countrymen's defeat but he was also pleased for his Tigers team-mates to have been involved in such a memorable victory Down Under.
And after successfully predicting a 2-1 Lions series win in the Mercury at the start of the tour, Salvi had nothing but praise for the men who achieved what no other Lions side has done since 1997.
"It's a massive achievement when guys come from four different countries and put together a game plan and go out there and carry it out successfully," he said.
"They fronted up for nine or 10 matches after most of those guys had played 30 games in a season and they did it well.
"It proves that if you have a good core of players and coaching staff, the Lions can travel abroad and upset anyone.
"I have to admit that, at 1-1, I thought the Aussie spirit would have seen them home, especially at Sydney. But (Lions head coach Warren) Gatland made some tough calls and his boys did the job.
"The Lions had not shown too much in the first two games but, in the third Test, they played a good brand and dominated the breakdown which was a big ask against George Smith."
While Australia have acted quickly to remove head coach Robbie Deans and replace him with former Stade Francais coach Ewen McKenzie, Salvi believes there are more deep-rooted problems for the Wallabies to consider.
"The Aussies have it tough now," he said. "When it was Super 12s rugby, the best players in the country were spread across three teams – now there are five of them in Super 15s.
"The country's talent is spread wider and those Super 15 clubs have to rely on more club players jumping up to fill that void.
"It's good experience for those guys but you don't always have the best players in the best three teams, which used to help them gel together for the national team's benefit.
"But the hardest thing for the spread of rugby union is the competition with the NRL (rugby league) and ARL (Aussie rules football). Both of those are free-to-air on TV, while Super 15s is on Fox Sports, which is their version of Sky Sports.
"Unless you pay for that, you don't get that week-to-week access to Union. They are not opening up the game to your average Joe Public, which doesn't help the game in terms of exposure to fans or players." Reported by This is 23 hours ago.