British and Irish Lions: Andy Farrell ‘unbelievably proud’ of Lions series win

In Sydney the Wallabies, ranked sixth in the world, scored three tries and looked in control of the game for large periods to show further improvement.

“I said in the week it would be insulting to question Australia’s place on the series and I repeat that,” Farrell added.

“Special things are going to happen to Australia over the next 18 months. They have special athletes and special players.”

Australia only played one warm-up game against Fiji in the lead-up to the series, which former Lion Andy Nicol believes was a big factor in their slow start in Brisbane.

“Joe Schmidt has got this wrong or Australian Rugby Union have got this wrong,” he told BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast.

“The preparation was just not right. We have said on so many occasions it is not like the Lions have crept up. The Lions has been 12 years in the making.

“They will absolutely rue the lack of preparation for that first Test because we have seen in Test two and three they are very competitive and in some cases a match or even better than the Lions.

“The fact the Lions won that first Test at a canter allowed them to be down in that second Test and come back and take the lead in the 79th minute.

“That has been hugely important and has won the Test series.”

The decision not to rule out Keenan’s winning try in Melbourne for a clearout from Jac Morgan was something Schmidt openly disagreed with.

However, he was not willing to use that as an excuse for the sole reason for losing the series and said his side started the campaign slowly.

“We can’t get those points back, we can only play the points that are in front of us. I’m not going to look back at maybes,” Schmidt said.

“We lost the first half of the series – I feel like we won the second half. I feel like we’ve grown into the series.”