{"id":310093,"date":"2025-08-01T20:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T20:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/310093\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T20:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T20:01:14","slug":"british-and-irish-lions-back-problems-leaves-tommy-freeman-touch-and-go-for-third-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/310093\/","title":{"rendered":"British and Irish Lions: Back problems leaves Tommy Freeman ‘touch and go’ for third Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British and Irish Lions may be forced into a late change to their starting XV for Saturday’s third and final Test match against Australia with wing Tommy Freeman struggling with a back problem.<\/b><\/p>\n

The 24-year-old sat out Friday’s captain’s run at the Accor Stadium and is understood to be “touch and go” for the game in Sydney.<\/p>\n

While it is hoped the England international will be fit to play, the Lions could be forced into a backline reshuffle if he is unavailable.<\/p>\n

Mack Hansen is a like-for-like replacement on the right wing, but is not thought to be 100% fit after picking up a foot injury three weeks ago.<\/p>\n

The Lions have been training with Huw Jones on the wing and Owen Farrell in the centre, while James Lowe could also return having been dropped from the squad for the third Test.<\/p>\n

Despite wrapping up the series following the dramatic 29-26 victory over the Wallabies in Melbourne,<\/a> the Lions are focused on completing the sweep and winning all their Test matches on a tour for the first time since 1927.<\/p>\n

“The job isn’t done in any shape or form,” forwards coach John Dalziel said on Friday.<\/p>\n

“There’s only one way that we want this to end and that’s to go unbeaten and to try to win 3-0.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British and Irish Lions may be forced into a late change to their starting XV for Saturday’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-310093","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\/114955294068871945","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310093","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=310093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}