2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia
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@Windows97 said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
Are there more natural born kiwi's and Australian's in this Lions squad than Welsh players?
Yes
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@Mr-Fish said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Bovidae said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
NZR has been approached by RA to release some players for the Anzac XV. Robertson is open to allowing some fringe ABs to play in this fixture to give those players opportunities at near test level..
Ultimately, the Lions had to sign off on the team, which probably means there's a restriction on the number of capped internationals.
What would be the reasoning for wanting less capped players in the opposition though?
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@Bones said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Mr-Fish said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Bovidae said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
NZR has been approached by RA to release some players for the Anzac XV. Robertson is open to allowing some fringe ABs to play in this fixture to give those players opportunities at near test level..
Ultimately, the Lions had to sign off on the team, which probably means there's a restriction on the number of capped internationals.
What would be the reasoning for wanting less capped players in the opposition though?
The warm-up games are only supposed to be a certain level of difficulty. Basically they don't want to be playing a whole extra Test midweek.
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@Mr-Fish said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Bones said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Mr-Fish said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Bovidae said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
NZR has been approached by RA to release some players for the Anzac XV. Robertson is open to allowing some fringe ABs to play in this fixture to give those players opportunities at near test level..
Ultimately, the Lions had to sign off on the team, which probably means there's a restriction on the number of capped internationals.
What would be the reasoning for wanting less capped players in the opposition though?
The warm-up games are only supposed to be a certain level of difficulty. Basically they don't want to be playing a whole extra Test midweek.
That's just you guessing though right? Or have they actually said that?
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@Bones my (not uneducated) understanding is that's how the tour is planned. I don't have absolute confirmation on that.
I'm guessing that when the replacement game was mooted by RA, one of the Lions' stipulations to ensure the level of challenge of the tour wasn't affected would have been limiting capped players (maybe a soft limit).
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From an article on The Roar from this weekend in reference to the ANZ side...
"Although Lions officials requested that an Australian A side be left off the heavy fixture list to ensure they aren’t playing effectively a ‘fourth’ Test, Kiss said his side weren’t approaching the match as a Barbarians clash and wanted to roughen up their opponents and set the tone for the series to come."
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@Windows97 Significantly so.
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For those in the UK with Sky but not Sky Sports all the matches are free to air on S4C the Welsh language channel
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The British & Irish Lions have confirmed Wales scrumhalf Tomos Williams has suffered a tour-ending hamstring injury in Saturday's win against the Western Force in Perth. Toulon and Scotland scrum-half Ben White has been called up to replace him and will join up with the squad in Brisbane.
I assume that means White won't be playing against the Māori.
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@MiketheSnow said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
For those in the UK with Sky but not Sky Sports all the matches are free to air on S4C the Welsh language channel
Most games seem to be on that Welsh language FTA channel don't they Mike? Noticed it when I was there last year.
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@Landers92 said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
David Havili, Shannon Frizell, Shaun Stevenson and Folau Fakatava all confirmed to be playing for the AUNZ Invitational XV against the Lions
Hopefully a few more recent BaaBaas get added to this list. I'd like to see Beehre, Sotutu & JRK involved
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Just read that Wales is the only country of the four to have a player involved in every Lions Test match
That record could be gone in a couple of weeks if Jac Morgan doesn’t play out of his skin this Wednesday and any other matches prior to the 1st Test
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@Landers92 said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
David Havili, Shannon Frizell, Shaun Stevenson and Folau Fakatava all confirmed to be playing for the AUNZ Invitational XV against the Lions
Interesting. I'd heard that no one from outside Super Rugby was going to get selected.
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@Mr-Fish said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Landers92 said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
David Havili, Shannon Frizell, Shaun Stevenson and Folau Fakatava all confirmed to be playing for the AUNZ Invitational XV against the Lions
Interesting. I'd heard that no one from outside Super Rugby was going to get selected.
Na mate they been trying to get Richie Mo too. Thought they were looking at a few from Japanese comp.
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@Mr-Fish said in 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia:
@Dan54 is that insider info, or just going off the various outlets that reported he couldn't play because he had a broken hand?
No insider info mate, just what I read about them trying to sort out insurance etc.
