This week will see the 2025 British and Irish Lions players begin training, however Andy Farrell will have 16 absentees for their camp in Portugal.
40 per cent of his squad will not be flying out to Portugal, this is because of next weekend’s United Rugby Championship and Premiership finals. This will leave Farrell with some potential selection headaches particularly in the front row with tighthead’s and hooker’s being a problem.
On Sunday it was announced that England centurion, Jamie George would be called up ahead of the one off Test match vs Argentina in Dublin.
With Leinster being triumphant over Glasgow Warriors on Saturday, it means that both Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher will not train. 31-year-old Luke Cowan-Dickie is expected to be heading to Portugal but will be travelling there after a hard fought performance for Sale Sharks against Leicester Tigers in the Premiership semi-final.
When the initial squad was announced back at the start of May, there were a few eyebrows raised over the fact that George, who has been on the 2017 and 2021 trips with the Lions was not selected. The experienced hooker is likely to play a week Friday, but like Kelleher who in 2021 joined the Lions’ training camp in Jersey, he then went on to be a late call-up for the tour to South Africa, fate could well repeat itself but this time around in favour of George.
Another position that will be causing issues ahead of the Argentina game is tighthead. Farrell will have only one available tighthead with that being Glasgow’s Zander Fagerson. Game time may be of concern as his last outing for last year’s URC winners was back in April due to injury.
With reports circulating around the fitness of Tadhg Furlong and the with the possibility of him not even jetting off to Australia, this could well be another position that will need looking at. Connacht’s Finlay Bealham could well be the one selected in his place and may even start against Los Pumas.
The amount of detail that Farrell and his coaching team may get through over the course of the short camp in Portugal may be minute. Especially with set-piece training with their forwards. So cover in those positions is needed for training and also for their clash against Los Pumas.
It goes without saying that all players playing in their respective finals, can make themselves available but some could well be unavailable as they play crucial roles in their teams and will likely need to be protected.
One of those players is Bath and Scotland’s Finn Russell who will likely be rested six days after playing for The Rec based side’s third Final of the season. Farrell may call upon his own son, Owen whose season with Racing 92 has concluded in France to replace Russell. Cohesion is massive for the lions and Northampton pair of Fin Smith and Alex Mitchell in the halfbacks could well be a game changer for the Lions, but Smith may need a helping hand and that could be from Owen Farrell.
Toulouse are still in the hunt for Top 14 glory, this means that Blaire Kinghorn will likely miss the game in Dublin. In replacement we could see Immanuel Feyi-Waboso or Darcy Graham replace him.
In previous tours, Warren Gatland has added players to his squad for midweek matches ahead of the important Tests, but Farrell who is head coach of the Lions for the very first time hasn’t got the luxury of that, as getting the right selection against Argentina is crucial.
He’s got this problem before they even land in Australia. Wales’ Tomas Francis, Cory Hill and Gareth Davies were some of the players added to cover in 2017, but this time around it’s a completely different story as Farrell’s standby list may be used before the tour even starts.
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