{"id":60423,"date":"2025-04-29T14:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/60423\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T14:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:26:08","slug":"lions-legend-picks-surprise-welshman-in-his-squad-after-gatland-singled-him-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/60423\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions legend picks surprise Welshman in his squad after Gatland singled him out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Farrell picks his Lions squad next week, with one coaching legend having offered up his own selectionWales’ Ben Thomas has been picked by Jim Telfer for a place on the plane to Australia (Image: Joe Giddens\/PA Wire.)<\/p>\n

British & Irish Lions coaching legend Jim Telfer has put forward Ben Thomas as a surprise tourist for this summer’s trip to Australia.<\/p>\n

Telfer, who assisted Sir Ian McGeechan on the victorious 1997 tour of South Africa, has picked his own 45-man squad ahead of the Lions’ official announcement next week – opting to choose three players in each position. And, at a time when many are expecting Wales to have their lowest contingent on a Lions tour since 1993, Telfer ended up plumping for seven Welshmen.<\/p>\n

“My third choice may surprise some people but I have been impressed by Ben Thomas of Cardiff and Wales,” Telfer told Scotland Rugby News<\/a> as he picked Thomas as one of three inside centres behind Scotland’s Sione Tuipulotu and Ireland’s Bundee Aki.<\/p>\n

“In a poor Wales team he has been very good. Scotland’s Tom Jordan came into my thinking as he is on the up, but didn’t make my top three.”<\/p>\n

Thomas, who has established himself at Test level in the last year, was described as the “best back in Wales” by Warren Gatland<\/a> last year – although the former Wales coach then played him out of position at fly-half.<\/p>\n

As well as Cardiff<\/a> centre Thomas, he included loosehead prop Nicky Smith, hooker Dewi Lake, second-row Dafydd Jenkins, flanker Jac Morgan, No. 8 Taulupe Faletau and scrum-half Tomos Williams.<\/p>\n

Telfer, famed for his iconic ‘Everest’ speech on the 1997 tour, also noted that Wales full-back Blair Murray would be on his reserve list.<\/p>\n

“As a British & Irish Lions coach you should never look at what country a player comes from,” Telfer added.<\/p>\n

“Any selections, as mine are here, should be based on the quality of the player. I am sure I have made some picks that people won’t agree with and I am hoping everybody is fit enough to be considered so obviously things could change but this team I have selected for the first Test can win in Australia.<\/p>\n

“There are a lot of good back-row forwards I have picked too and who are available to Andy Farrell, and whoever doesn’t make the Test team will feel disappointed, but that is how it goes.” 25% OFF DEAL NOW: Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Despite that, both Morgan and Faletau make his – admittedly heavily-populated – back-row selection.<\/p>\n

Morgan – described by the 85-year-old as a “good captain of a poor Wales side” – is sandwiched between first choice Josh van der Flier and England back-row Ben Curry, while “incredible” Faletau also sits between Irish duo Caelan Doris and Jack Conan.<\/p>\n

On the blindside, Telfer opted for England duo Tom Curry and Ben Earl, as well as Scotland’s Jamie Ritchie – one of 10 Scots in his squad.<\/p>\n

Exeter lock Jenkins is one of six second-rows in Telfer’s squad – as he notes that both the Welshman and Irish lock Joe McCarthy are aggressive and will “annoy the opposition”.<\/p>\n

England duo Maro Itoje and Ollie Chessum are Telfer’s first-choices, with Ireland’s Tadhg Beirne and Scotland’s Scott Cummings the other second-rows.<\/p>\n

There’s no Welsh tighthead, with Telfer opting for Irish duo Tadhg Furlong and Finlay Bealham to tour alongside Zander Fagerson.<\/p>\n

However, Lake is picked as one of the three hookers alongside Dan Sheehan and Luke Cowan-Dickie, while loosehead Smith is picked behind Ellis Genge and Andrew Porter.<\/p>\n

Telfer was particularly complimentary of Smith, calling him an “excellent player”. He added: “For me, he is a similar player to Tom Smith and I can’t pay a prop a higher compliment than that.”<\/p>\n

In the backline, there’s very little Welsh interest. Scrum-half Williams sneaks in alongside Jamison Gibson-Park and Alex Mitchell, with his club form and the fact that Scotland nine Ben White doesn’t start regularly for Toulon cited as the reasons for his inclusion.<\/p>\n

Finn Russell, Fin Smith and Sam Prendergast are Telfer’s fly-halves, with Garry Ringrose, Huw Jones and Robbie Henshaw his outside centres.<\/p>\n

In the back-three, Tommy Freeman, Darcy Graham and Tom Roebuck are his right wing options, while James Lowe, Duhan van der Merwe and Kyle Steyn are his choices on the left flank.<\/p>\n

As for full-back, Scarlets<\/a> full-back Murray is the next cab off the rank behind Blair Kinghorn, Hugo Keenan and George Furbank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell picks his Lions squad next week, with one coaching legend having offered up his own selectionWales’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[5313,4151,79,16,15,14260],"class_list":{"0":"post-60423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-british-and-irish-lions","9":"tag-rugby","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-wales-rugby-team"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114421719574674368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60423","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=60423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}