B&I Lions 2017
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@No-Quarter said in B&I Lions 2017:
I hope Furlong is fit for the tour, he became my favourite NH player after going beast mode against the ABs.
Agreed. Still my favourite gif from last year.
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The good news is Leinster and Saracens lost their semifinals.
Bad news is not all of 11 Lions may turn up in Dublin for next training session.
Munster v Scarlets and Exeter v Wasps for the finals next week and Northampton playing Stade Francais in the euro play off final.
It'll be interesting to see who Gatland starts in the first match.
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@Pot-Hale said in B&I Lions 2017:
The good news is Leinster and Saracens lost their semifinals.
Bad news is not all of 11 Lions may turn up in Dublin for next training session.
Munster v Scarlets and Exeter v Wasps for the finals next week and Northampton playing Stade Francais in the euro play off final.
It'll be interesting to see who Gatland starts in the first match.
Gats will probably be quietly happy with the way this weekend tuned out in the end, albeit with a few under injury clouds. Looking like only the following still unavailable to him with club commitments (and thus definitely wont be involved in the first match)
O'Mahony
Stander
Lawes
Murray
JD II
Nowell
Daly
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@hydro11 said in B&I Lions 2017:
Why are the Hurricanes given the best chance of the New Zealand teams when they will be without Barrett?
Guess it's because it's played between 1st and 2nd test so against the 2nd XV. Maybe also later in the tour and injuries and wear and tear may be starting to tell?
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Lions bolter Jared Payne on returning to New Zealand - 'I now consider myself Irish but with Kiwi heritage'. Sunday Telegraph
Jared Payne, the most left-field of the British & Irish Lions selections, may also be the most laid-back. Last November, the Ireland centre ruptured his kidney after being tackled by Australia’s Reece Hodge, although the damage was only revealed when he suddenly felt the need to go to the toilet at half-time.
“I didn’t really notice it at the time,” Payne told The Sunday Telegraph. “It was more like someone had got me in a half-decent tackle. I thought ‘yeah he’s quite tough’. “It was only half-time when I went to the toilet I saw I was peeing blood.
“Faz [Andy Farrell] was next to me laughing saying you ought to get that checked out. I was trying to pass it off as the beetroot juice that you sometimes take before the game but the doc wasn’t having that. It was lucky I didn’t go out there.”
Given that the injury would keep him out for three months, he said with no little understatement: “In hindsight, it was probably for the best I came off.”
For every firebrand like Peter O’Mahony or Alun Wyn Jones, the Lions squad also needs its quota of easy-going, sanguine tourists and Payne is as laissez-faire as a French yoga instructor.
An enthusiastic early adopter of Twitter, Payne’s stream stopped dead on November 15, 2013. Every professional sportsman has felt the sharp end of social media at one time or another and it was easy to imagine trolls targeting Payne having come to Ireland as a “project player” from New Zealand. The truth was more prosaic.
“I got a new phone and I didn’t know what my Twitter password was,” Payne said. “I didn’t know which email I used either so I had no idea how to get it back. If you know how to get a Twitter password back then let me know. I am not the best with technology. My iPad stopped working the other day. Again, no idea how to fix it.”
That Payne is so rarely ruffled or riled is a prized quality in the heat of the Test-match arena, as the 31-year-old demonstrated in Ireland’s final Six Nations match against England. Being thrust straight back into the side after his lay-off, Payne’s first act was to drop a high ball. Thereafter he produced a masterclass of composure and control from full-back as England’s 18-game winning run came to an end in Dublin.
Nevertheless, even the unflappable Payne was shocked his name was read out by John Spencer, the Lions tour manager on April 19. “I was at Ulster and we were having lunch,” Payne said. “For some reason the TV we were watching it on was 30-40 seconds delayed so my partner Chrissy texted me to say ‘oh my God you’ve made it’. I thought she was pulling my leg. Thirty seconds later my name got read out for real.
“I didn’t think I had any sort of chance. I had a pretty disrupted season with injury. It still feels make believe. I think it will be a paper dream until we get out there.”
Inevitably New Zealand-born Payne’s selection drew extra attention. Unlike fellow Kiwi Ben Te’o, Payne, who represented New Zealand Under-21s, has no immediate ancestry from the British Isles. He came to Ulster in 2011 and qualified for Ireland three years later under World Rugby’s three-year residency rule that will extended to five years in 2020.
As such his allegiances have been questioned in both the New Zealand and Irish press, not that it particularly troubles him. “Some people in the media are bringing it up,” Payne said. “It is part of their job to be entertaining. I am not the most serious person so I won’t take any of it to heart. I don’t mind being the lightning rod for all that stuff. It is more about the people I play with and as long as they accept me then that’s the most important thing.”
As much as some people like to think that the concept of nationality is black and white, Payne is proof that there are many shades of grey. Soon after arriving in Northern Ireland, he met his future fiancée and they are currently embarking on a full-scale renovation of a house together just outside Belfast.
“You are always going to be born in a certain country so I guess you could call me a Kiwi but I want to spend the rest of my life here,” Payne said.
“I have got a nine-month old baby and a dog and a house so those are pretty deep roots. It will be pretty tough to leave. I consider myself Irish but with Kiwi heritage. I don’t know how to describe myself but I don’t really get hung up on tags.”
A restless soul, Payne had played for the Chiefs, Crusaders and Blues in New Zealand before deciding to head north. “It has been a bit of a roundabout path,” he said. “I have always moved around. This will be the longest that I have been in one place for my whole life. I had always been keen to do a bit of travel overseas and never got a chance. I thought bugger it. This will be a bit of an adventure and a chance to see the rest of the world and play rugby in a different place. The international aspect always gets brought up but at the time I really didn’t take that into account.
Warren Gatland's Lions rugby squad gives him plenty of playing options Warren Gatland's Lions rugby squad gives him plenty of playing options 02:06
“That [All Blacks] door shut but I have always said that I have never strived for a particular goal. My main concern is enjoying it. I have always said that as soon as I stop enjoying rugby I will stop playing.“That’s the main driver for me. If you enjoy doing what you are doing that’s more important than who you are playing for.”
Being a New Zealander does have its advantages. Payne says he knows the “lie of the land” in the different towns and cities that the Lions will be playing in and just as importantly has played alongside many of the current All Black side. Having been part of the Irish side that also brought New Zealand’s 18-game winning run to an end in Chicago last year, Payne does not believe in auras, even at the citadel that is Eden Park – venue of the first and third Tests – where the All Blacks have not lost since 1994.
“It is going to be tough for sure,” Payne said. “They are the best in the world. But they are only human and nothing lasts forever. Records are there to be broken.”
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hopefully he gets another run at Okara Park, even if for the wrong team!
Definitely a favorite of the parochial Cambridge blue fans!
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@Pot-Hale All I took from that was he doesn't believe in auras .
He doesn't believe in auras people.
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@jegga said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale All I took from that was he doesn't believe in auras .
He doesn't believe in auras people.
I took the fact that he's got a kid, a dog and a house and a fiancée and that he wants to stay there for the rest of his life. And also that he likes to move around a bit and try new things. And it will be pretty tough to leave.
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@Pot-Hale said in B&I Lions 2017:
@jegga said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale All I took from that was he doesn't believe in auras .
He doesn't believe in auras people.
I took the fact that he's got a kid, a dog and a house and a fiancée and that he wants to stay there for the rest of his life. And also that he likes to move around a bit and try new things. And it will be pretty tough to leave.
That's all pretty interesting but peripheral to his non belief in auras though.
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@jegga said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale said in B&I Lions 2017:
@jegga said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale All I took from that was he doesn't believe in auras .
He doesn't believe in auras people.
I took the fact that he's got a kid, a dog and a house and a fiancée and that he wants to stay there for the rest of his life. And also that he likes to move around a bit and try new things. And it will be pretty tough to leave.
That's all pretty interesting but peripheral to his non belief in auras though.
An yes. People born with aura don't believe in aura. It's a rugby ecumenical matter.
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@Pot-Hale said in B&I Lions 2017:
@jegga said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale said in B&I Lions 2017:
@jegga said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale All I took from that was he doesn't believe in auras .
He doesn't believe in auras people.
I took the fact that he's got a kid, a dog and a house and a fiancée and that he wants to stay there for the rest of his life. And also that he likes to move around a bit and try new things. And it will be pretty tough to leave.
That's all pretty interesting but peripheral to his non belief in auras though.
An yes. People born with aura don't believe in aura. It's a rugby ecumenical matter.
Interesting, interesting ,so he's some sort of aura fifth columnist?
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@jegga said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale said in B&I Lions 2017:
@jegga said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale said in B&I Lions 2017:
@jegga said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale All I took from that was he doesn't believe in auras .
He doesn't believe in auras people.
I took the fact that he's got a kid, a dog and a house and a fiancée and that he wants to stay there for the rest of his life. And also that he likes to move around a bit and try new things. And it will be pretty tough to leave.
That's all pretty interesting but peripheral to his non belief in auras though.
An yes. People born with aura don't believe in aura. It's a rugby ecumenical matter.
Interesting, interesting ,so he's some sort of aura fifth columnist?
Sounds like it. I always thought he looked a bit shifty-eyed myself. And he plays for Ulster, what more can I say? He should be out west.
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Billy Vunipola out with a shoulder injury. Haskell in.
Pretty much the worst player it was possibleto lose pre tour for the Lions.
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@Margin_Walker said in B&I Lions 2017:
Billy Vunipola out with a shoulder injury. Haskell in.
Pretty much the worst player it was possibleto lose pre tour for the Lions.
That's a real shame. I was really looking forward to see how he fared in NZ.
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Shame. Simplifies the "who to start at 8" debate, though.
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Why Haskell as a replacement? He doesn't play any of the backrow positions well enough.
Barring injury it's pretty obvious that the Lions will have Stander, Warburton and Faletau as their backrow.
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@antipodean said in B&I Lions 2017:
Why Haskell as a replacement? He doesn't play any of the backrow positions well enough.
Barring injury it's pretty obvious that the Lions will have Stander, Warburton and Faletau as their backrow.
He did well enough at openside last year. Grandslam winner, man of the series against Australia, outplayed Pooper and all of his direct Lions competition.
Billy is an enormous loss. I can only imagine that anyone who doesn't rate him hasn't watched him properly for the last couple of years.
