{"id":247718,"date":"2025-07-08T10:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T10:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247718\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T10:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T10:10:10","slug":"british-and-irish-lions-tour-australias-noah-lolesio-ruled-out-of-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247718\/","title":{"rendered":"British and Irish Lions tour: Australia’s Noah Lolesio ruled out of series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia’s preparations to face the British and Irish Lions have suffered a major setback after first-choice fly-half Noah Lolesio was ruled out of the series.<\/b><\/p>\n

The 25-year-old was carried off the pitch in the Wallabies’ 21-18 win over Fiji on Sunday<\/a> with an apparent whiplash injury.<\/p>\n

He was initially discharged from hospital later that day, raising hopes he would be fit to face the tourists. However, after further check-ups, he had surgery on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Rugby Australia said Lolesio “will spend a period of time away from the game during his rehabilitation”. That absence will span the entirety of the series against the Lions.<\/p>\n

Lolesio was left out of Australia’s Rugby World Cup squad in 2023 but has since become the Wallabies’ go-to fly-half under head coach Joe Schmidt.<\/p>\n

He started five of the Wallabies’ six Rugby Championship games last year and all four of their autumn internationals in the northern hemisphere.<\/p>\n

Ben Donaldson seems most likely to take on the 10 role, with Tom Lynagh – the England-raised 22-year-old son of Wallabies great Michael Lynagh – also in the squad named for the Fiji fixture.<\/p>\n

Schmidt could call on the experience of Bernard Foley and James O’Connor to bolster his options.<\/p>\n

The first Test against the Lions takes place in Brisbane on 19 July, with the second and third Tests being staged on the following weekends in Melbourne and Sydney.<\/p>\n

The Fiji fixture was Australia’s only warm-up match for the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s preparations to face the British and Irish Lions have suffered a major setback after first-choice fly-half Noah…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-247718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114817075064765658","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}