Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.<\/a><\/p>\n“That’s the hotly contested one,” said Farrell after naming his team. “Part of the side that’s been talked about for quite some time and rightly so because of the quality we’ve got there.<\/p>\n
“Obviously we feel that’s the right balance for the first Test, the combination of Tadhg being the type of player that he is, his quality in the set-piece but his all-round ability either as the jackaler or a ball-playing six, complements Jack.<\/p>\n
“In a similar regard, Tom being the engine that we all know that we need in regards to Test match football.”<\/p>\n
When asked how close Morgan was to selection, Farrell added: “As close as you could imagine.<\/p>\n
“Look, you’re gutted for players like that and Josh as well, and Henry as well, because they’re playing good rugby and could easily be in this side on Saturday, but I suppose that shows the good place that we’re at as a group.”<\/p>\n
Unlike Morgan and former world player of the year van der Flier, Curry does have experience of playing in a Lions Test series before – featuring against the Springboks in Cape Town four years ago.<\/p>\n
“You 100 per cent throw everything into the mix,” said Farrell when asked if previous experience played a part. “It\u2019s a big responsibility representing this group, first up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what we came for, Test match football and it\u2019s a big responsibility to show each other how we\u2019re going to attack this game.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou take a lot of things into account, form is one but you also take into account big match temperament and we\u2019ve got a good few of those in the starting line-up.<\/p>\n
“(It’s) seeing them around the group and how they\u2019re going to make each other feel this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t just have to be a Lions legend to do that, it\u2019s how you cope with the here and now also. So, it\u2019s just the feel of the group. That\u2019s the main thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British & Irish Lions coach has been speaking about his first Test team to face the Wallabies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,5313,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-268846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-british-and-irish-lions","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114867642298005331","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268846","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=268846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_JS375499807.jpg\")
British & Irish Lions head coach Andy Farrell (Image: David Davies\/PA Wire.)<\/p>\n