British and Irish Lions ready for first Test against Wallabies, with the time for talking now over

Australia Broadcast Center

18-07-2025

The time for talking is over for the British and Irish Lions, with the first Test against the Wallabies in Brisbane little more than 24 hours away.
There's been quite a bit of talking, too.
Ben Earl told the Guardian last week the squad had been open about "being one of the best Lions teams."
Henry Pollock, with all the enthusiasm and confidence of youth, sang from the same team sheet.
"We want to come here and be the best Lions team ever," the 20-year-old said this week.
"We have been talking about that loads and 3-0 is definitely on the table, hopefully.
"We are all trying to strive to be the best team we can be and get that 3-0 win."
Given the Lions have not, in a standalone tour, won a Test series 3-0 since 1891 — also against Australia — that's quite some confidence.
It's riled some people up too, former Wallaby Chris Latham included.
"For me, and I'm sure for every Aussie, it's like, 'OK, righto. We'll shut you up'", Latham told the UK's Telegraph.
"I'm a Queenslander and it's ingrained in us to be underdogs and be able to pull a win out from nothing.
"This is perfect for us. I've been feeling this now for the last probably three, four weeks while the Lions have been thrashing everyone else and getting cockier and cockier.
"Everything you read, it's about 'how good are we' and 'we're building' and 'this is so great'. It's like, 'Yeah, you keep talking that, you keep believing that.'"
The question would be, should the Lions believe it?
This is a hugely experienced Lions team, with 933 caps worth of experience to call upon in their starting line-up and another 370 on the bench.
The Wallabies have less than half that in their line-up, just 408 caps in their starting XV. Of those, 143 caps belong to James Slipper alone, with 80 on the other side of the front row with Alan Alaalatoa.
And yet, the Lions have not won a Test series since beating Australia 2-1 in 2013 — although they did draw, memorably, against New Zealand in 2017.
Before that, the 2-1 victory over South Africa in 1997 was their only other series triumph in the last 30 years.
A hit rate of just two series victories in their last eight shows just how hard it is for the Lions to win Test matches on tour after a month of crisscrossing the continent or, perhaps more pertinently, being beaten up by local sides.
Historically, victories over Australia have been much easier to come by than South Africa and New Zealand. Overall, the Wallabies have won just two of the nine series they have played against the Lions: the one-off Test in 1930 and in 2001.
In that time, the Wallabies have only won six of 23 Test matches against the vaunted tourists.
New Zealand, by contrast, have won 30 of 21, and South Africa, 26 of 50 — which all suggests that the strength of the local sides plays more of a role than cross-country travel.
Back to the present day though and, even accounting for the obvious issues around bringing together a group of disparate players from different countries and melding them into a cohesive unit, has this Lions team been ripping up trees on tour so far?
Against the Force and Reds, the points eventually flowed but against the Waratahs and Brumbies, the Lions looked rather limp, disjointed and anaemic in attack, penalty-prone at the breakdown, laborious at the lineout and, frankly, disappointing in defence.
The Lions also lost to Argentina in Dublin before leaving for Australia.
To put that shock into perspective, an under-strength England have have since won back-to-back Tests against that same side in South America.
Yes, the 48-0 battering of the AUNZ invitational team was much, much better from the Lions: there was a directness in their running and slickness in their handling that had been almost entirely absent in the opening few tour matches.
But how much of that was down to the aforementioned issues of bringing different players together — however talented — on short notice?
"There's no overconfidence at all," Lions coach Andy Farrell said this week.
"It's having an inner confidence within our group that we are going to go execute the plan when it matters.
"There's a realisation of what it is and what it means and how privileged we are, but that does not get in the way of how we prepare to make sure that we allow ourselves to be the best version of ourselves."
Farrell has picked a side for this first Test in Brisbane that is relatively safe when it comes to it — much in the same way he picked his squad as a whole.
An all-Scottish 10-12-13 axis makes sense — Finn Russell, Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones play together well and contain the necessary heft to match the Wallabies' own dynamic midfield duo of Len Ikitau and Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii.
This will be the key battle in the back line, with potential flashpoints simmering as four physically imposing centres all look to get the early shot that lays down a marker for the rest of the series — patience will be necessary, from Suaalii in particular, as his suspect tackling technique is laid bare for examination.
There are no surprises in the tight five and the outside backs, given the injury to Blair Kinghorn, with Hugo Keenan stepping in.
The back row was always going to be debatable and there Farrell has gone for power and experience — all three of Jack Conan, Tom Curry and Tadhg Beirne have previous Lions Test match experience.
However, Harry Wilson, Fraser McReight and new man Nick Champion de Crespigny should not and will not be overawed and should have the upper edge when it comes to the breakdown due to their immense jackling abilities.
Which makes Jac Morgan's omission all the more glaring.
Not only does it mean that Wales is without a representative in a Lions Test squad against one of the Southern Hemisphere's big three for the first time since 1896 — although historical appeasement should never be the deciding factor in Test selection — his performances on tour have been very impressive.
The last time the Lions played in Brisbane, eight of the tourists' starting XV were Welsh, with two more on the bench. How the mighty have fallen.
Perhaps his non-selection over Curry comes down to how the Englishman bullied the Welshman at the Millenium Stadium back in March's Six Nations flogging.
"You're actually gutted for players like Jac, Josh [van der Flier] and Henry because, playing good rugby, they could easily have been in this side," Farrell said.
"I suppose it just shows the good place we're at as a group."
Pollock, for all his chat and exuberant performances, will not have a chance to put the Lions on the first step towards a whitewash, having been left off the bench as Farrell weighed up his back-row options.
Earl will play, though, Ollie Chessum the other option to provide back-row cover in a strong bench, albeit one split 5:3 to match the Wallabies and negate the Springboks' blitz-boks impact style.
That's it now, then. No more experimenting. No more chopping and changing. These are the 23 who will look to write their names down in Lions history.
Lang Park will be packed to the rafters, the sea of red singing their hearts out.
The talking is done. Game on.
Wallabies match-day squad: Tom Wright, Max Jorgensen, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Len Ikitau, Harry Potter, Tom Lynagh, Jake Gordon, Harry Wilson (c), Fraser McReight, Nick Champion de Crespigny, Jeremy Williams, Nick Frost, Allan Alaalatoa, Matt Faessler, James Slipper
Reserves: Billy Pollard, Angus Bell, Tom Robertson, Tom Hooper, Carlo Tizzano, Tate McDermott, Ben Donaldson, Andrew Kellaway
Lions match-day squad: Hugo Keenan, Tommy Freeman, Huw Jones, Sione Tuipulotu, James Lowe, Finn Russell, Jamison Gibson-Park, Jack Conan, Tom Curry, Tadhg Beirne, Joe McCarthy, Maro Itoje (c), Tadhg Furlong, Dan Sheehan, Ellis Genge
Reserves: Rónan Kelleher, Andrew Porter, Will Stuart, Ollie Chessum, Ben Earl, Alex Mitchell, Marcus Smith, Bundee Aki