Lions v First Nations and Pasifika XV live updates: Jamie Osborne makes debut
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the
Lions game
against First Nations and Pasifika XV. Kick-off at Melbourne's Marvel Stadium is at 11am.
The opposition are a bit of a mouthful to say, but basically means they are a team of Indigenous Australian or Pacific Islander origin, and a second go at the Lions for the likes of Charlie Gamble and Taniela Tupou after playing for the Waratahs earlier in the tour.
Fresh off their defeat of the Wallabies, it's a chance for some players who aren't likely to be in the Test side, including late Irish call-ups
Jamie Osborne
, who starts, and Thomas Clarkson, who is on the bench. Andy Farrell's son Owen captains the side.
BRITISH AND IRISH LIONS
: B Kinghorn (Scotland); D Graham (Scotland), J Osborne (Ireland), O Farrell (England, capt),D van der Merwe (Scotland); F Smith (England), B White (Scotland); P Schoeman (Scotland), J George (England), F Bealham (Ireland); J Ryan (Ireland), S Cummings (Scotland); J Morgan (Wales), J van der Flier (Ireland), H Pollock (England).
Replacements
: E Ashman (Scotland), R Sutherland (Scotland), T Clarkson (Ireland), G Brown (Scotland), B Earl (England), A Mitchell (England), M Smith (England), G Ringrose (Ireland).
FIRST NATIONS AND PASIFIKA XV:
Andy Muirhead (First Nations); Triston Reilly (First Nations), Lalakai Foketi (Maori & Tonga), David Feliuai (Samoa), Filipo Daugunu (Fiji); Kurtley Beale (First Nations, capt), Kalani Thomas (Maori); Lington Ieli (Fiji), Brandon Paenga-Amosa (Samoa), Taniela Tupou (Tonga); Darcy Swain (Samoa), Lukhan Salakaia-Loto (Samoa); Seru Uru (Fiji), Charlie Gamble (Tonga), Tuaina Taii Tualima (Samoa).
Replacements:
Richie Asiata (Samoa), Marley Pearce (Maori & First Nations), Mesake Doge (Fiji), Mesake Vocevoce (Fiji), Rob Leota (Samoa), Harrison Goddard (First Nations), Jack Debreczeni (Cook Island), Jarrah McLeod (First Nations).
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RTÉ News
44 minutes ago
- RTÉ News
Preview: Lions won't be bowled over by history at the MCG
Only 21 games of rugby union have ever been played at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground. The British and Irish Lions didn't even exist when the Carlton football club hosted Waratah from New South Wales in June 1878 for that first game of rugby at the MCG. They played two games that weekend, one as a game of rugby, and the other under Victorian rules – the game we now know to be Australian Rules Football. An estimated 6,000 people were in attendance for that game, the result of which was disputed by both teams. The MCG will look a lot different this week, as the Wallabies and British and Irish Lions look to threaten the biggest ever crowd for a rugby game at Australia's most famous sporting venue, that being the 90,119 that watched Australia host New Zealand in 1997. The Lions have been here twice before, defeating Victoria on their 1899 and in 1930 tours, but they've never played a Test at 'The G'. In fact, this will be just the fifth international Test ever to be played at the ground, all four being Bledisloe Cup games between the Wallabies and the All Blacks. Rugby union is practically a minority sport in Melbourne, with pretty much everything playing far behind Aussie Rules during the winter in this town. However, it hasn't been an easy place for the Lions to visit. In 2001 and 2013 they brought a 1-0 lead to Docklands Stadium (now Marvel Stadium), where the Wallabies tied up the series, but it would take something special for Joe Schmidt's side to set up a deciding Test in Sydney next week. It was jarring to see how easily the Lions bullied the Wallabies a week ago in that first half as they cruised towards a 17-5 half-time lead, before extending it minutes after the break to effectively kill off the game. 'We were probably all a danger to ourselves, this wouldn't have happened.' #RTERugby podcast pundits @jonnyholland10 and @MurphyJohne hail Garry Ringrose for self-reporting a head injury after being included in the Lions starting XV for second Test — RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) July 24, 2025 They played in a way we simply don't associate with a Joe Schmidt side, with Tom Lynagh floundering behind a pack that was going backwards phase on phase, and their attacking shape appearing disorganised and improvised – not in a good way. There was plenty of heart on display, but heart can only get you so far in a game of collisions, and their late rally to score two tries and put some respectability on the scoreboard was as much down to the tourists taking their foot off the gas rather than the Wallabies finding an extra gear. Farrell was clearly frustrated last Saturday evening at how his side took their foot off the throat in the final half an hour at Suncorp Stadium, and when he referred back to it on Thursday after naming his side for this week's second Test, he described it as a "dip in focus" from his players. "We thoroughly believe that we're way better than what we showed, and we've got another chance to prove that," he said, after naming his side for the second Test yesterday. Joe McCarthy (above) misses out due to the plantar fasciitis which forced him off early in the second half last week, and Farrell has resisted the temptation to move Tadhg Beirne into his usual position at lock, slotting Ollie Chessum in alongside captain Maro Itoje and retaining last week's exceptional back row trio of Beirne, Tom Curry and Jack Conan. Andrew Porter also starts, perhaps to create a change in the picture they present at the scrum after some decisions went the Wallabies way last week, but equally to unleash Ellis Genge's explosive qualities on a tiring Australian pack in the second half. In the centre, Bundee Aki (below) comes in for Scotland's Sione Tuipulotu, where Farrell had plans to pair him with his Ireland team-mate Garry Ringrose, but after the Leinster centre had to drop out due to concussion, Huw Jones came back into this week's line-up. Despite having played his Irish and Scottish centres together for the majority of this tour, Farrell is backing the Aki-Jones combination to gel. "At this stage of the tour, and well before this stage of the tour, actually, the combinations have been absolutely fine together. So Bundee and Huw will hit it off exactly like any other type of partnership. "These things happen in the warm-up of any game, the pressure is off and people tend to play freely because of that type of situation. Huw won't miss a beat in that regard," Farrell added. Given the head coach's frustrations at how little impact he got from his bench last week, his decision to shuffle the replacements is worth noting. Genge is arguably a victim of his own high-octane style of play, held back to keep the energy levels him when he comes on in the second half. With Chessum starting, James Ryan got the nod to step up to the bench, and while it's been suggested that Scot Cummings is the more in-form of the two, Ryan's abrasiveness at the breakdown is something Farrell has always valued. Farrell did go for the form option of Jac Morgan as his back row replacement ahead of Ben Earl's versatility, while the decision to play Owen Farrell over Marcus Smith as the replacement out-half shows the stock Andy is putting in leadership. For their worth, Australia have clearly addressed the power imbalance of last week in their selection. Leinster-nemesis Will Skelton - all 6ft 8in and 135kg of him – comes in at second row, while reigning Australian player of the year Rob Valetini has also recovered from injury to start. Flanker Langi Gleeson has also been declared fit, and is named on the bench, with Andrew Kellaway dropping out to allow for the 6:2 split, something the haven't done since a World Cup warm-up against France in 2023. While Skelton has been a consistent thorn in the side of the many Leinster players in this group, Valetini's return is more important for the Wallabies for his ball-carrying ability. 'A member of the Concrete XV', as described by the Sydney Morning Herald's Iain Payten (above) on this week's RTÉ Rugby Podcast, the Wallabies tried to share the burden of his ball-carrying in Brisbane last week, Nick Frost and Fraser McReight their two leading carriers in the pack with just 42 metres made from a combined 26 carries. If Valetini can get on the ball and make the Lions defence go backwards, the field could open up, with more time in the hands of Lynagh and more space in midfield for their wildcard, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii. It should be a better Wallabies team than we saw in Brisbane, but the feeling is that it's still not good enough, and the performances of Taniela Tupou, Lukhan Salakai-Loto and Darcy Swain for the First Nations and Pasifika XV last week suggest that while there is top level talent in Australia at the moment, it's not all being picked by the Wallabies. Verdict: Lions Australia: Tom Wright; Max Jorgensen, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Len Ikitau, Harry Potter; Tom Lynagh, Jake Gordon; James Slipper, David Porecki, Allan Alaalatoa; Nick Frost, Will Skelton; Rob Valetini, Fraser McReight, Harry Wilson. Replacements: Billy Pollard, Angus Bell, Tom Robertson, Jeremy Williams, Langi Gleeson, Carlo Tizzano, Tate McDermott, Ben Donaldson. British and Irish Lions: Hugo Keenan; Tommy Freeman, Huw Jones, Bundee Aki, James Lowe; Finn Russell, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong; Maro Itoje, Ollie Chessum; Tadhg Beirne, Tom Curry, Jack Conan.
Irish Examiner
2 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Lions Letter: The 'G will convert non-believers into devoted fans on Saturday
The trams on the way out from Flinders Street Station were busy on Thursday evening as fans from Hawthorn and Carlton made their regular pilgrimage to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for their weekly dose of the AFL. We know it as Aussie Rules and to supporters of this city's nine professional AFL teams in this sports-mad city, their destination is simply 'The 'G'. As a kid growing up in 1970s and 80s England, where the football season morphed into cricket every May, the biennial glimpse of an Ashes tour Down Under focused on the MCG and the Boxing Day Test was a beacon of summer warmth amid the Christmas festivities, though for English sides going into the lion's den they rarely emerged unscathed. This was the ground where the late, great Shane Warne, that most mercurial and talented of Australian spin bowlers bowled the first Ashes hat-trick in 91 years when he skittled out the English tail-end on Boxing Day 1994 as the visitors crumbled to 92 all out to lose the match by a whopping 295 runs. The English journalists among the visiting media being shown around the 100,024-seat stadium on a rain and windswept Tuesday lunchtime were reminded of that fact during a fascinating tour in the company of former Australian cricketer Damien Fleming. Fleming, who was in that Aussie bowling attack that day 31 years ago, also pointed to the only seat in the MCG's vast stands that was coloured red, to mark the longest-hit six at the stadium, way up on the second tier. It invited an innocent question from an Irish rugby journalist of 'what's a six?'. All of which goes to prove that cricket remains a mystery to many, and that tales from "The 'G" are still to be learned from those not steeped in the games to have been played here. Mack Hansen plays hurling during the British & Irish Lions squad captain's run at the MCG in Melbourne, Australia. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile Rugby union takes another tentative step into the MCG on Saturday night, when the British & Irish Lons break new ground against Australia in the second Test of this 2025 series. A crowd of 95,000-plus is expected at this iconic venue and centrepiece of the 1956 Olympics and Wallabies skipper Harry Wilson is eagerly anticipating running onto the hallowed oval. 'It's super special. For Australian sport, there's no bigger stadium,' Wilson said. 'You grow up here watching Boxing Day tests, the AFL Grand Finals all here. It's always sold out, packed. It doesn't get much better than that, so I guess the feeling of probably running out here in front of 90 plus thousand people is truly special.' It is also a stadium where the great Jim Stynes, the AFL's finest import from Ireland, has been cast in a bronze statue on the plaza surrounding it in tribute to his feats with the Melbourne 'Demons' Football Club. All this was new to John Fogarty on Friday as the Lions wrapped up their captain's run training session at the MCG. The Ireland and Lions scrum coach is a recent convert to the MCG's iconic status. 'I didn't know what the MCG was, I have never watched cricket, never seen the game, we didn't play it when we were kids so I hadn't got a clue,' Fogarty admitted. 'Andy (Farrell) has been telling us: 'Wait until you see this'. When he got back from doing a recce he was 'oh my God, this stadium, that stadium' but nothing landed until we walked out. 'My brother Denis is over and he came to the (AFL) game last night and was telling me it was going to be some stadium to play in, it is an amazing place. 'I remember the first time I walked out to Croke Park when I was a kid and I was 'oh God, look at this' so when we walked out you could see a lot of us looking around and going 'Jesus, this is bigger than anything we have been in before'. 'Certainly for me it is bigger than anything I have been in before, it is an unbelievable privilege to be here, I know have said it a couple of times, but I mean it. I feel unbelievably lucky, and the players are the same, to be able to do this stuff. It is not normal.' Whether the Lions win or lose on Saturday morning, you can be sure the MCG will have converted a few more non-believers into devoted fans of this magnificent sporting cathedral.
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘This game might be completely different': Andy Farrell warns Lions to expect kick from wounded Wallabies
Australia v British & Irish Lions Venue : The MCG, Melbourne Kick-off : 8pm local time/11am Irish On TV : Live on Sky Sports Rugby, like most sport, doesn't always do logic. And if a week is a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson once said, then it can certainly be true in rugby, not least when the same teams meet again seven days later. This is all the truer in the context of a Lions Test series. READ MORE The sense of a major sporting occasion has been more acute in Melbourne than in Brisbane, as the 40,000 strong Red Army, comprising supporters who have travelled from Ireland and the UK and the thousands of expats based in Australia, began to descend upon the city. Honestly, there's so many Irish about it almost feels like being at home. This accentuated the normal buzz of a Friday night on the riverfront or in central Melbourne and the bars were rammed. It feels like the city has just stopped for one long partying and sporting weekend. The vast bulk of Lions fans will have done so in confident expectation that their team will be complete a series clinching 2-0 win. Yet history has taught us that winning the First Test counts for little or nothing come kick-off a week later. Indeed, it can often work against the winners as the losers have perhaps the most powerful motive in sport: revenge. What's more, in a three-match series the vanquished team in the first Test are in do-or-die mode. It happened here in this city in 2013 and again four years later in New Zealand, when the Lions recovered from losing the first Test 30-15 to win the second in Wellington 24-21 a week later. Four years ago the Springboks completed a 23-point turnaround from the first to the second Tests. Andy Farrell was part of the Lions coaching ticket on those tours to Australia and New Zealand and he has also overseen Irish sides recovering from losing a first Test by winning the second a week later away to the All Blacks and the Springboks . The better side one week isn't always the superior side; as with the Lions in 2017, Ireland would have been underdogs on both occasions. It can be done and often is done. Furthermore, every match is shaped by its opening engagements and thereafter assumes its own narrative. All the more so if, say, the Wallabies score an early try. Backed into a corner, Australian sides and their supporters love to come out fighting. They did it in 2001 and in 2013 when avenging a first Test defeat in Brisbane by winning the second in Melbourne, going on to win the series on the former occasion before losing the Sydney decider a dozen years ago. Bundee Aki bowls during a warm-up cricket match during British & Irish Lions training at the MCG Stadium on Friday. Photograph: David Rogers/Getty 'This game might be completely different,' Farrell said. 'We might have a role reversal and we have to adapt and be honest with ourselves and stay on point if we are in front or if we are behind, things going your way, not going your way. It is just staying honest as long as we possibly can.' The first Test was also played in sunny Brisbane, but the forecast for Saturday evening here in Melbourne, although changeable, is promising rain and plenty of it, adding to the vagaries. 'Somebody's looking at it [weather forecast] 10 times a day at the minute,' Farrell said with a rueful smile. 'We expect it to be wet, but sometimes somebody tells me a completely different story to what someone else told me five minutes before. It is what it is. We've got to play the game that's in front of us. We'll be ready for all those different types of scenarios.' One ventures this is partly why Farrell has installed Bundee Aki from the start, while moving Ellis Genge to the bench and having the safety net of his son Owen's vast experience to draw on in a call that looks like it will give the Lions better oomph off the bench. But then again that is assuredly so from the off with the Wallabies, given Joe Schmidt has reinstated Will Skelton and Rob Valetini, whose combined weight is 253kg. 'We didn't have the intention last week, and we don't have the intention this week, of being submissive,' Schmidt said. 'I just think that they played on the edge really well. They got in among us, sometimes just beside us, which made it very hard to play, and we're hopeful that we will be able to take that to them this week and keep them on the back foot a little bit more.' The Australian Wallabies players stretch during training at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday. Photograph: William West/Getty Schmidt and the Wallabies believe they could have executed plenty of moments a little better, didn't get the lineout platforms they are capable of, didn't generally get the rub of the green and that they were much closer to the Lions than is widely thought. Whereas the Wallabies are fighting for their lives, the Lions are hunting for the kill, but will the likes of Tadhg Beirne and Tom Curry, for example, scale the extraordinary heights of last week? And although Ollie Chessum and James Ryan are like-for-like promotions in the absence of Joe McCarthy , will the latter be missed? After such a prolonged build-up to the first Test, can the Lions reach the same emotional pitch again? 'It shouldn't be because that's all here, in the head,' Farrell said. 'I suppose everyone is a human being. But if you look at it from an Australian point of view, they played the same 80 minutes, the same contest. 'It cannot be the case that they're more up for this game because they're in the exact same scenario. The only contradiction would be that they're emotionally more up for it, so that can't be part of it for us.' This second Test could well have more ebbs and flows, feel more competitive and generate a different kind of energy and atmosphere among the 90,000 fans. But if Farrell and co have the Lions primed – and they have looked ruthlessly focused from the outset of the tour with only family visitors and treks to cafes offering much in the way of a distraction – then a week on they actually should be the better team again. Australia : Tom Wright (Brumbies); Max Jorgensen (Force), Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii (Waratahs), Len Ikitau (Brumbies); Harry Potter (Waratahs); Tom Lynagh (Reds), Jake Gordon (Waratahs); James Slipper (Brumbies), David Porecki (Waratahs), Allan Alaalatoa (Brumbies), Nick Frost (Brumbies), Will Skelton (La Rochelle), Rob Valetini (Brumbies), Fraser McReight (Reds), Harry Wilson (Reds, Capt). Replacements : Billy Pollard (Brumbies), Angus Bell (Waratahs), Tom Robertson (Force), Jeremy Williams (Force), Langi Gleeson (Waratahs), Carlo Tizzano (Force), Tate McDermott (Reds), Ben Donaldson (Force). British & Irish Lions : Hugo Keenan (Leinster Rugby/Ireland); Tommy Freeman (Northampton Saints/England), Huw Jones (Glasgow Warriors/Scotland), Bundee Aki (Connacht Rugby/Ireland), James Lowe (Leinster Rugby/Ireland); Finn Russell (Bath Rugby/Scotland), Jamison Gibson-Park (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Andrew Porter (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Dan Sheehan (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Tadhg Furlong (Leinster Rugby/Ireland); Maro Itoje (Saracens/England, Capt), Ollie Chessum (Leicester Tigers/England); Tadhg Beirne (Munster Rugby/Ireland), Tom Curry (Sale Sharks/England), Jack Conan (Leinster Rugby/Ireland). Replacements : Ronan Kelleher (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Ellis Genge (Bristol Bears/England), Will Stuart (Bath Rugby/England), James Ryan (Leinster Rugby/Ireland), Jac Morgan (Ospreys/Wales), Alex Mitchell (Northampton Saints/England), Owen Farrell (Saracens/England), Blair Kinghorn (Toulouse/Scotland). Referee : Andrea Piardi (FIR) Assistant referees : Nika Amashukeli (GRU), Ben O'Keeffe (NZR) TMO : Eric Gauzins (FFR) FPRO : Marius Jonker (SARU) Overall head-to-head : Played 24. Australia 6 wins. Lions 18 wins Last seven meetings : 2001: Australia 13 Lions 29; Australia 35 Lions 14; Australia 29 Lions 23. 2013: Australia 21 Lions 23; Australia 16 Lions 15; Australia 16 Lions 41. 2025: Australia 19 Lions 27. Forecast : Lions to win.
