Jamie George will join British & Irish Lions training in Portugal next week as cover for Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher.
The Irish hookers are preparing to play for Leinster in the United Rugby Championship (URC) final against the Bulls on Saturday, meaning that they and 14 others cannot train at the Lions’ first training camp in the Algarve.
Sheehan and Kelleher will miss the gathering alongside their Leinster team-mates and the Lions from Bath and Leicester Tigers, who face each other in Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership final at Twickenham.
Andrew Porter, Tadhg Furlong, Will Stuart, Ollie Chessum, Joe McCarthy, James Ryan, Jack Conan, Josh van der Flier, Jamison Gibson-Park, Finn Russell, Garry Ringrose, Hugo Keenan and James Lowe will also be unable to join the Lions squad yet. Blair Kinghorn, the Toulouse back, is another player who is unavailable because the Top 14 season is yet to finish either.
Replacements are therefore required and it is understood that George, the former England captain who toured with the Lions in 2017 and 2021, will be one of them.
George missed the initial selection for Andy Farrell’s Lions squad in May, as Luke Cowan-Dickie was preferred, but has a chance at redemption now. Initially he has been called up only for next week’s training, as the Lions needed more front-row forwards for set-piece sessions as they prepare to face Argentina in Dublin on June 20.
George played for the Lions in the 2017 and 2021 tours
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND
As things stand, George should return to the England camp next week, as Steve Borthwick’s side train before they play a France XV on June 21 at Twickenham, and then go on tour to Argentina and the United States in the summer, but he could well join the Lions officially at a later date. In 2021, it was Kelleher who was called up late for a pre-tour training camp in Jersey, before later joining the full party in South Africa.
Farrell and his medical staff will have to assess a number of injured players when they gather in Dublin, and then fly to Portugal on Monday. Furlong, the tight-head who is a veteran of two tours, is seriously struggling with a calf injury, so Finlay Bealham, the Ireland and Connacht prop, is on standby to be the next extra call-up.
Elsewhere, Duhan van der Merwe (ankle) has not played since late March and Mack Hansen (also ankle) has not featured for Connacht since mid-April. Zander Fagerson, the Scotland tight-head, also has a calf injury and the flanker Van der Flier, centre Ringrose and full back Keenan, all missed Leinster’s 37-19 URC semi-final win against Glasgow Warriors on Saturday.
The Lions will be in Portugal all of next week, then will decamp for Dublin. Those who play in finals could make the bench for the pre-tour Argentina game, but Farrell will need significant cover.