| Re: The British & Irish Lions Thread
Here’s the Lions team to face the Natal Sharks on Wednesday:
15. Lee Byrne (Ospreys/Wales)
14. Shane Williams (Ospreys/Wales)
13. Brian O'Driscoll (Leinster/Ireland)
12. Jamie Roberts (Cardiff Blues/Wales)
11. Luke Fitzgerald (Leinster/Ireland)
10. Ronan O'Gara (Munster/Ireland)
09. Mike Phillips (Ospreys/Wales)
01. Gethin Jenkins (Cardiff Blues/Wales)
02. Lee Mears (Bath/England)
03. Adam Jones (Ospreys/Wales)
04. Alun-Wyn Jones (Ospreys/Wales)
05. Paul O'Connell (Munster/Ireland, capt)
06. Tom Croft (Leicester Tigers/England)
07. David Wallace (Munster/Ireland)
08. Jamie Heaslip (Leinster/Ireland).
Replacements: Matthew Rees (Scarlets/Wales), Phil Vickery (London Wasps/England), Simon Shaw (London Wasps/England), Joe Worsley (London Wasps/England), Mike Blair (Edinburgh/Scotland), Riki Flutey (London Wasps/England), Leigh Halfpenny (Cardiff Blues/Wales).
That looks far more like a test match team than any of the others’ that have been selected thus far in the tour. It’s a great opportunity for some of those guys to well and truly put their hand up for test selection. The Lions need a good convincing win in the run up to the test matches, and this is a team that I can see doing it. The centres are key, if they have a good game then the Lions will perform well. Stephen Jones played very well against the Golden Lions, so O’Gara needs to be on top of his game in order to compete with him.
Unfortunately I’m going to miss this game due to work commitments, but hopefully it’ll be a better performance than the one against the Cheetahs. |