Australia missing five key men and give Tom Lynagh first start v Lions

Times

10 hours ago

Australia have been decimated by injuries for the first Test against the British & Irish Lions, with Will Skelton, Rob Valetini, Langi Gleeson and David Porecki to all miss the game in Brisbane on Saturday.
Noah Lolesio, the first-choice fly half, had already been ruled out after undergoing neck surgery, completing an injury list that has forced Joe Schmidt to roll the dice with his selections.
Tom Lynagh will make his first Test start at fly half, 36 years after his father, Michael, wore the same Wallabies No10 jersey against the 1989 Lions. Schmidt admitted it was 'not ideal' to be testing the diminutive 22-year-old in a game of this magnitude.
Skelton, the 6ft 8in, 23st lock, and Valetini, a key back-row ball-carrier, missed Australia's warm-up Test against Fiji with calf injuries and have failed to recover in time.
Gleeson filled in for Valetini at blind-side flanker against Fiji but he has a hamstring issue and so Schmidt has drafted in the uncapped Western Force flanker Nick Champion de Crespigny for his Test debut at the age of 28.
Schmidt, the Australia head coach, confirmed Harry Wilson as Wallabies captain and said he hoped the team had not been rattled by the injury list. But the absentees take with them vital experience.
Valetini had played 47 of the past 51 Tests. Lolesio had started ten of Australia's past eleven games. Lynagh, who was raised in England, has been recovering from a broken hand and is yet to start a Test match.
'I'm really excited for Tom,' Schnidt said. 'He's a great kid. He's got a quiet confidence about him. You wouldn't think that he's necessarily designed to run a game and dictate what's happening, but he does have a quiet confidence that gives us a quiet confidence as well.
'And he's fitted in really well this week. He has given us the confidence, and the players the confidence, that he's going to run the game really well for us. His kicking game is strong. He's got good acceleration and he's incredibly brave to a fault.
'It's his home track [in Queensland]. It's a fantastic opportunity for him. We twice had him lined up for his first start for the Wallabies last year and he picked up little niggles. So it's great this time. Probably not ideal to be starting your first Test match for the Wallabies against the British & Irish Lions, but you've got to start somewhere and if not now, when. So now is good.
'I'm confident in him. It's a stadium he knows really well, it's a piece of grass that he's been on and been across many, many times. So I think that will just help him settle into his game.
'If he can settle early, hopefully he can get a rhythm that allows him to dictate the game to a degree. We know there's going to be times where we're not going to be in enough control to dictate the game. But as I said, he's very brave defensively, very competent in the air. So whatever does get thrown at Tom, I am confident that he'll cope and I'm very confident that he'll learn from the occasion. And it may be that he has to learn quickly because of the magnitude of the game and the quality of the opposition.
'I'd like to think that we can still go out, probably sharing Tom Lynagh's quiet confidence that we can put a game together that at least can keep the British & Irish Lions pretty honest on the day.'
Schmidt expects Valetini and Skelton to play in the second Test in Melbourne next weekend and said he would have risked them had Saturday's game at Suncorp Stadium been a series decider.
'The risk you take if you put those guys out there and they're not quite ready and you try to push them through, you might end up worse off,' he said. 'Bobby has been a very regular starter for us and a big player for us. Those are the things that do happen.'
Champion de Crespigny, who played against the Lions earlier in the tour and got into a scrap with Henry Pollock, had spent four years with Castres in France after failing to land a professional deal in Australia.
'He's got big shoes to fill,' Schmidt said. 'The good thing with Nick, he's a good lineout option. I thought he was very good in the Force lineout. He is probably a bit more of a roving scavenger than Bobby V, who in the past has been a big ball-carrier for us. And so he'll compliment Fraser McReight in that respect. And it probably puts a little bit more onus on Harry Wilson to fulfil the ball-carry role.'
First Test, BrisbaneSaturday, 11amLive on Sky Sports