Andy Farrell has challenged his British & Irish Lions players to rouse themselves for \u201cthe biggest game of our lives\u201d in the second Test on Saturday after watching his second\u2011string team edge past the First Nations & Pasifika XV.<\/p>\n
Farrell\u2019s side can clinch a first Lions series win in 12 years with a game to spare but are expected to have to try to do so without the second-row Joe McCarthy, who has not trained fully this week because of a foot injury. In better news, Marcus Smith passed a head injury assessment ensuring he was not automatically ruled out of the second Test.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday the Lions \u2013 led by captain for the night Owen Farrell \u2013 defeated the First Nations & Pasifika XV 24-19<\/a>, having been level at 14-14 at half-time. Blair Kinghorn played all 80 minutes on his return from injury but endured a mixed bag of a game, while Garry Ringrose came on inside in the opening 20 minutes after an injury to Darcy Graham. Owen Farrell, meanwhile, showed some impressive glimpses and staked a claim for a place on the bench on Saturday.<\/p>\n By and large Andy Farrell is expected to stick by the majority of his starters from the first Test win in Brisbane<\/a> last weekend, with Ollie Chessum ready to deputise for McCarthy. The Lions led by 19 points at one stage in Brisbane but allowed the Wallabies to claw back to within eight at the final whistle.<\/p>\n Asked if there was room for improvement, Farrell said: \u201cPlenty, yes. There will have to be plenty to get to the point where a win\u2019s on the cards because we know that Australia are going to be \u2026 can you put a percentage on it, it\u2019s going to be a lot. If you can\u2019t get up for what\u2019s coming, we\u2019re all in the wrong place. To me, this is the biggest game of our lives, every one of us that\u2019s part of our squad, so we\u2019ll make sure that we address the week like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith was withdrawn late on against the First Nations & Pasifika XV, raising fears that he may have to drop out of the Test squad and further open the door for Owen Farrell<\/a> to feature.<\/p>\n Andy Farrell confirmed that Smith was fine and offered an honest appraisal of Owen\u2019s performance, highlighting his left-footed chip to set up Jamie Osborne\u2019s opening try. \u201cSome good things obviously, a nice little chip off the left peg. Some nice touches on the ball as well but always work\u2011ons, there are always work\u2011ons.\u201d<\/p>\n Farrell Jr completed all 80 minutes \u2013 all too often a rarity in an injury\u2011plagued season \u2013 and relished the challenge against a fired up First Nations & Pasifika XV for whom Charlie Gamble, Taniela Tupou and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto all shone. \u201cI enjoyed it,\u201d the former England captain said. \u201cThere\u2019s always things you can do better and we\u2019ll have a look back at the game and see what they were. But I loved being out there.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved that it was difficult, that it was hard tonight. We got some joy early on but it was a tough match. I feel like I\u2019ve been in a tough match now sat here. So I\u2019m grateful for that.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the rest of it, we\u2019ll see. We\u2019ve got a job to do regardless for the rest of this tour \u2013 whether you\u2019re lucky enough to be involved or preparing the team for what is a massive occasion on Saturday and next week \u2013 so it\u2019ll be great whatever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Andy Farrell is due to hold a selection meetingon Wednesday before naming his team on Thursday, but with McCarthy unable to train it seems unlikely he will feature. Mack Hansen, who missed the first Test with a foot injury, is in a similar position, with the Lions head coach saying: \u201cMack\u2019s progressing. Whether he\u2019s progressing quick enough we\u2019ll see towards the end of the week.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s all sorts that goes into it, some performances [from tonight], there\u2019s no doubt about that. But there\u2019s also what\u2019s right for this second [Test] and what that presents and the makeup of the squad and how it feels. Are a few changes going to freshen it up, or do we go with the same guys?<\/p>\n \u201cAll that comes into the pot and it\u2019s whatever\u2019s best for the team that we think that we need on a game like that at the MCG with over 90,000 people. So yeah, it should be like that, shouldn\u2019t it? It should be challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell has challenged his British & Irish Lions players to rouse themselves for \u201cthe biggest game of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-283403","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\/114898781009000366","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283403","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=283403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}