Wallabies boss Joe Schmidt appears to have altered his stance slightly on the subject of releasing his Test stars for the British and Irish Lions’ pre-Tests tour games.
In mid-May, Australia’s head coach was adamant that he wanted to “safeguard” up to 25 first-choice players to make sure they did not pick up any injuries ahead of the series.
“The policy is that we’d probably be very keen to safeguard out what we perceive to be 23 or 24, 25, and then the rest of the squad for them to get the games and to get to play against the Lions,” Schmidt told reporters last month.
“We don’t want to deprive someone of the opportunity of playing against the Lions if they’re not going to get the Test jersey at the time.
“But we know that the Lions, you never get through unscathed, so we know that we’re going to need people.”
Criticism
That drew criticism from some observers, including veteran British writer Stephen Jones, who claimed it was a “betrayal” of the Lions.
“To come all that way to play an inadequate side is a betrayal of an invitation to the Lions and this time they really should have put their foot down and had the strengths of opponents written into the tour contract. They did not. Why?” Jones wrote in his Sunday Times column.
“Otherwise, the Lions should have gone elsewhere. It is high time that they worked hard to develop another touring location so that they can, blatantly, hold to ransom one of the regular hosts. Sometimes, there just is no gratitude.”
However, Schmidt has now suggested that some players who have not played for a while could well feature for their franchise against the famous touring team.
That could potentially include those that are returning from injury or individuals that play for teams who were knocked out before the Super Rugby Pacific play-offs.
‘Mix and match’
“It’ll be a mix and match I think. There may be some guys named in the Wallaby squad who don’t actually join us when we assemble,” Schmidt said.
“One thing we’re conscious of is a) making sure our clubs are competitive and b) some of these guys haven’t played – it’ll be four or five weeks since they’ll have played.
“So to get a game under their belt before they actually come into Wallaby camp may be the most advantageous situation for us.”
The Wallabies also play a Test on July 6 against Fiji but Schmidt has previously been reluctant to state how strong that 23 would be.