Any interest in this? Announcement currently kicking off, and always interesting to see who gets picked, who gets left out, and why.
I do genuinely love a Lions tour (watching on telly, rather than ever having gone out for one), and I hope that the matches go ahead today.
I’m hoping Sam Simmonds gets in, he’s immense and Eddie Jones is all kinds of wrong to keep picking Vunipola over him.
Aye. He has a conundrum at 10. One of Russell, Sexton, Farrell and Biggar isn’t going (sexton for me). Should see a good representation from Scotland this time round too
AWJ for captain, was nailed on really. Didn’t get all the itoje for captain stuff flying around.
Some proper head scratchers
Aki, Lawes, Daly and Hill are all definitely very lucky.
No Jonny May or Jonny Grey is frankly weird as is the suggestion Sinckler isn’t in the best 3 tight heads available.
Sam Simmonds is a massive up yours to Eddie Jones.
Can only imagine that picking 6 nominal locks means that one of them will probably be at blindside flanker l, with Tipuric and Simmonds in there to balance that out.
Yeah I have to say I was surprised to see Aki in there and Lawes. Also Chris Harris surprised me a little.
Jonny May seems to have dropped off a little this year; would have rather Jack Nowell if there was going to be another English winger selected.
I wonder who it was that forced the management to have to select 37? Lawes? Jamie George?
Itoje is a walking penalty machine, and I don’t know what kind of leadership that gives. Equally, as he’s so prickly, I am not sure how he’d pull the 4 nations together - whereas you can see AWJ being fairly respected across all teams.
Think there are some very weird choices, but probably a balanced enough squad. Think Mako is very lucky to be picked, Lawes, Aki, Hill. No may is strange, no slade. Yeah strange. There must be been some people, like Youngs and Marler who ruled themselves out due to touring in a bubble.
@robstation01 yeah, lots of chat about him going as captain which I found hilarious. not only for the reasons you mentioned, but for the fact Gatland has AWJ as a tried and tested captain.
There are undoubtedly more than just Ben Youngs who gave asked not to be picked.
The fact that Youngs declining, when he would have been on the lucky boys list, has been so public is quite amusing.
Reckon Youngs did that as a face saving move. Rather bow out of selection than to not be selected at all
Not sure where your picking this up from tbh. He comes across as intelligent, well spoken and engaging in most instances.
I mean on the pitch, seems to revel in pissing the opposition off. I know that it’s par for the course for many players but he seems to push it fairly far, so it would be interesting to see how he’d cope with leading from the front.
If you’re holding that against Itoje, then I’m not sure there’s any way you can support AWJ as captain either.
Aye you’re probably right - I’ve just seen a lot more of Itoje playing than I have AWJ, what with the various Sarries matches I’ve watched over the years. Also probably part of my anti-Sarries bias as well.
You want a bit of spike in your captains - however there’s an argument that it can’t be all spike, or like Owen Farrell you end up on the wrong side of the ref. Haven’t seen too much of that with AWJ in the admittedly fewer games I’ve seen him in.
Delighted for Bundee, great lad. Even if I do think Ireland should grow up and not participate in the whole charade
AWJ off with an arm injury minutes into the first warm up match. Bodes well
Yeah he looked a sad fella didn’t he. Hope he’s OK.
Tipuric off too. Hope that’s a precaution
Dislocated shoulder. Out of the tour
Been ruled out of the tour as well. Great start
Hadn’t seen that about Tipuric. Gutted for him but at least there does seem to be a wealth of back row options.
The loss of AWJ is harder to take, as it’ll be harder to replace his leadership; not sure about Murray but hoping he does well. I have to admit to watching the match worrying about injuries from the off, and then thinking about how many injuries you’d expect per match. Too many.
