The key quality behind Andy Farrell’s selection for third Lions Test
Spare a thought for the travelling loved ones of the collection of British and Irish Lions who have spent the Test series with a watching brief. The pride will not at all be dimmed for those fans in question, and there has been plenty to enjoy about their kin’s contributions to a trip upon which history is within reach, but it is a long way to come for family and friends to not see them feature.
But perhaps that is an overly cynical view – and it is certainly not one shared by the wider squad. Four fewer (27) players have featured in this Test series than four years ago in South Africa, but the buy-in from each and every member of a bloated travelling party has been, according to Andy Farrell, outstanding. “We all came together from day one and said it’s not just about the [match-day] squad, the only thing that matters is the squad and that’s it, full stop,” the Lions head coach explained.
“Every single one of us, there’s been no separation, we’ve all trained together, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve played the day before or whatever, you’ve always helped the next team that’s going out there. The modern-day game is always about the 23 that take the field, not the 15 any more, but it’s way beyond that for us. It was about the 38 or the 41 or the 44, whichever way you want to look at it.”
It cannot have been easy for those on the outside to look in at each squad unveiling – some frustration, perhaps even anger, is natural. For a Farrell stalwart like Josh van der Flier, who never misses a game when fit for Ireland, these might have been particularly tricky weeks with Tom Curry, Jac Morgan and Ben Earl ahead in a brutal pecking order of prized fighting hens. There is a thought, meanwhile, that Fin Smith remains Farrell’s second choice as a pure fly-half were misfortune to strike Finn Russell, and yet the Scot’s unimpeachable form and the versatility offered by Marcus Smith and Owen Farrell have meant that he will have to wait four more years at least to pull on a Test jersey.
Yet the Northampton youngster has been spoken about as a key character in running the opposition side in training with the intensity and accuracy required to properly prepare the Test team. And on Saturday night, with the series won, it was he and some of the other non-playing reserves leading the celebration charge.
“You come in after such a big victory on Saturday night, and I just left them to it because I couldn’t get a word in. The ones that were celebrating most were the ones who hadn’t put the shirt on. It says it all, to be honest. It actually touches you. It does. It touches you in the sense of how much it means to them.”
Perhaps that collective buy-in is why Farrell has felt able to rotate minimally as his side go in search of a 3-0 whitewash. The insertion of Blair Kinghorn comes as little surprise, given the efficacy of the Scot off the bench last week. The forecast for a dreich night more akin to Stranraer than Sydney means his aerial acumen is likely to be valuable. “Blair is obviously a great athlete but the unpredictability of his game makes him very dangerous,” Farrell explained. “The conditions that we’re expecting as far as the aerial game is concerned will be at its premium, so I think this game suits him.”
Likewise, James Ryan’s work, both seen and unseen in those final second Test minutes, has earned him the nod ahead of Ollie Chessum as Maro Itoje’s third lock partner of the tour. “His physicality when he has come off the bench, when he has put the jersey on over the last three or four weeks, has been there for all to see, so we think he’s the right person to start the Test.”
Certainly, there will be some in Lions red running slightly on fumes, engines empty after an ever-lengthening season further elongated by this tour. Itoje, Andrew Porter and Tadhg Beirne, in particular, have played mighty minutes across the campaign but will strap up weary bodies and go again against a Wallabies pack weakened slightly by a couple of key absentees.
Not so heavy on workload in another injury-hit season, but nonetheless well weathered, is Tadhg Furlong, for whom this is a ninth consecutive, and probably final, Lions Test start. Willie John McBride’s record of 15 straight outings will probably never be challenged, yet the longevity of the tighthead is testament to his diligence. There were warm words on Thursday from Australia head coach Joe Schmidt, who gave Furlong his Ireland debut, as well as Farrell.
“It just always happens that when this comes around, how much it means to him means he gets himself in the right frame of mind to be able to do what he’s done,” Farrell said.
“It isn’t just the performances that have been through the roof. It’s his manner on a Lions tour as well. I’ve never seen him in such good spirits, so he’s ready to go again. He’s had to adapt his training and how he looks after himself, understanding his body a lot more over the last couple of years. But to be honest, he’s unbelievably diligent in all of that now.
“But the nature of a tour like this works in somebody like Tadhg’s favour because when you’ve not got a normal week, which is a seven-day process of warming up and warming down and having to do all sorts of stuff to tick boxes, you get out of your own way on a tour like this because you have to just roll with the punches of what’s thrown in front of you.” Furlong’s example – and indeed the rest of the squad’s – is one that Farrell will hope future Lions will be able to follow.
