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Ireland dominate Sam Warburton's British and Irish Lions team of the week
By Sam Smith
Sam Warburton has selected his British and Irish Lions team of the week following the second round of Six Nations fixtures, and it's flooded with Ireland players despite Andy Farrell's team losing back-to-back games in the Six Nations. Ireland were beaten 15-13 at home to France yesterday, following an opening round 21-16 loss to Wales in Cardiff.
That hasn't stopped Warburton from picking a number of Irish players in his Lions team of the week, selecting a total of six players from Farrell's team. Warburton also selected four players from England, three from Wales, and only two from Scotland.
Warburton gave the nod to Finn Russell at full-back following Scotland's 25-24 defeat to Wales in Edinburgh on Saturday. On the wings, the former Lions and Wales captain opted for the in-form Louis Rees-Zammit, who scored two tries against the Scots, and England's Anthony Watson, who also dotted down twice in the 41-18 win over Italy.
Warburton went for an all-Irish centre partnership of Robbie Henshaw and Garry Ringrose, with Scotland's Finn Russell at out-half alongside Ireland scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park.
Two English players make the cut in Warburton's front row, with Wales prop Wyn Jones joining Luke Cowan-Dickie and Kyle Sinckler.
There's another all-Irish combination in the second-row, where Warburton picks Iain Henderson alongside Tadhg Beirne.
The backrow sees Ireland's Rhys Ruddock selected with England's Tom Curry and Wales No 8 Taulupe Faletau.
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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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