stepping away from Test rugby<\/a> to \u201cprioritise his and his family\u2019s mental wellbeing\u201d but is now set to play his 19th game for the Lions across four tours.<\/p>\nTadhg Beirne will again captain the side, while Alex Mitchell maintains his record of being involved in every game on the tour, this time as a replacement scrum-half behind Ben White, who will make his Lions debut. Mack Hansen, who also came off the bench against the Brumbies on Wednesday night, starts on the right-wing this time, with Marcus Smith joining Farrell on the bench.<\/p>\n
We are in a great position just over a week out from the first Test,\u201d said Andy Farrell, the head coach. \u201cThis is the most important game of the tour because it\u2019s the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quick GuideAUNZ Invitational XV v Lions: the teamsShow<\/p>\n
AUNZ Invitational XV:<\/b> Stevenson; Lam, Laumape, Havili (co-capt), Koroibete; Edmed, Fakatava; Ross, Paenga-Amosa, Toomaga-Allen, Blyth, Salakaia-Loto (co-capt), Frizell, Samu, Sotutu. <\/p>\n
Replacements:<\/b> Eklund, Fusitu\u2019a, Dyer, Philip, Brial, Thomas, McLaughlin-Phillips, Campbell.<\/p>\n
British & Irish Lions:<\/b> Keenan; Hansen, Jones, Tuipulotu, Van der Merwe; F Smith, White; Schoeman, Cowan-Dickie, Stuart, Ryan, Beirne (capt), Pollock, Morgan, Earl. <\/p>\n
Replacements:<\/b> Kelleher, Porter, Bealham, Cummings, Van der Flier, Mitchell, M Smith, O Farrell.<\/p>\n
Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n
The AUNZ Invitational XV certainly does not lack for big, physical men, with the Wallaby forward Lukhan Salakaia-Loto and the New Zealand centre David Havili sharing the captaincy duties. The presence of the All Black back-row Shannon Frizell is never a comfortable prospect for opposing teams, while Pete Samu was a member of the Bordeaux B\u00e8gles side that beat Northampton in the Champions Cup final in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Owen Farrell will feature in his first game of the British & Irish Lions tour on Saturday after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-253780","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\/114829590754183774","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253780","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=253780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}