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Dylan Hartley picks his British and Irish Lions XV
By Josh Raisey
Former England captain Dylan Hartley has chosen Maro Itoje and Tadhg Beirne as his second-row partnership in his starting British and Irish Lions XV this summer.
In a squad that is going to contain an abundance of world-class locks, Hartley chose Wales captain Alun Wyn Jones and Beirne’s Ireland teammate James Ryan in his secondary squad, although he did name the Welshman his tour captain.
“Everyone’s wondering where Alun Wyn Jones is, and he’s the back-up to Mr Maro Itoje,” the 97-cap hooker said on RugbyPass Offload this week.
“They’re both workhorses. They’re both annoyingly good workhorses. So if one of them gets injured or you want to bring a like-for-like on, they’re very similar grafting players.”
Beirne is rewarded for his outstanding Guinness Six Nations, where he was a nominee for Player of the Championship. The winner of that gong, Hamish Watson, has also made the squad, alongside Tom Curry and Taulupe Faletau in the back-row.
Hartley’s former Northampton Saints teammate Dan Biggar has also made his team at fly-half on the back of a catalogue of fine displays for club and country in 2021. He is partnered with his Welsh teammate Gareth Davies inside him.
One position that will have to change is outside centre, where Harley picked George North. The newly fashioned No13 has since been ruled out of the tour with a ruptured ACL.
North would have been in many people’s starting XV against the Springboks before he picked up the injury last weekend playing for the Ospreys. Hartley chose Henry Slade as his back-up option to the Welshman at outside centre.
With less than a week before Warren Gatland names his 36-man squad, only those playing in the European semi-finals this weekend have a final chance to impress him.
Hartley’s Lions XV:
1 Mako Vunipola
2 Luke-Cowan Dickie
3 Tadhg Furlong
4 Maro Itoje
5 Tadhg Beirne
6 Tom Curry
7 Hamish Watson
8 Taulupe Faletau
9 Gareth Davies
10 Dan Biggar
11 Duhan van der Merwe
12 Robbie Henshaw
13 George North
14 Anthony Watson
15 Stuart Hogg
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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