Lack of Lions experience won’t faze Andy Farrell’s squad as ‘talent in the room’ makes for exciting tour
Maro Itoje stands alongside Lions coach Andy Farrell after officially being named as captain
©Will Gupwell / TRU
After months of speculation, discussion and predictions, British and Irish Lions head coach Andy Farrell named his 38-man squad to take on Australia this summer.
England captain Maro Itoje will be leading the Lions down under, with Farrell selecting 15 Irishmen, 13 Englishmen, 8 Scots and two Welsh players in his touring party.
The squad was announced live for the first time ever in front of a crowd at the O2 in London, with loud cheers meeting each player reveal.
And possibly the biggest cheer of all came for 20-year-old Northampton Saints and one-cap England sensation Henry Pollock.
Pollock, who was playing for England Under-20s earlier this season and only made his Premiership debut back in October, was undoubtedly the name on everybody's lips on Thursday afternoon.
“If you’re good enough, you’re old enough,” Farrell explained about his decision to pick Pollock.
“I can just see the fight in him, I think everyone can see that anyway. I’m sure he’ll push all the others as well. I like what I see, he’s always trying to make a difference. There’s an energy and a bounce about him.
“That's how you tend to have big moments in the game because you're searching for them. That's what I like seeing in his game and with plenty of others who have made the squad as well.”
Pollock has had a meteoric rise in his first season of professional rugby and will be the youngest Lion heading to Australia.
Rewind the clock back to 2017, and it was new captain Itoje who was the youngest player on that tour of New Zealand.
For the 30-year-old, there might be a sense of ‘coming full circle’ as he prepares for his third Lions adventure, but what became noticeable once all 38 names were read out was the absence of Lions experience within the squad, with only 12 of the 38 having previously pulled on the iconic red jersey.
“Twenty-six guys are on their first tour, nine are on their second, and for a lot of them, their first was that 2021 tour, which was completely different,” Farrell added, referencing the Covid-affected tour of South Africa four years ago.
“So it’s new and fresh to everyone. It’s up to us, the staff and Maro, to make sure they understand what's coming and make it special.”
Itoje added: “I want players to enjoy it. This is an incredibly unique experience. Tomorrow isn’t promised, but we enjoy it by working hard. We enjoy it by giving all of ourselves to it, and we enjoy it by being selfless.
“If we do all three things with the talent we have in the room, it's going to be a great tour.”
Since being the youngest man on tour in 2017, Itoje has long been one of the best locks in the world and somehow seems to have elevated that further this season since taking on the England captaincy.
“It means an awful lot, it’s a tremendous honour,” Itoje continued. It’s very humbling and a bit of a surreal experience.
“I found out [about the captaincy] on Tuesday afternoon. I got a call from a mysterious Irish number! It’s been incredible, and I’m excited to get going.
“I want this Lions squad to be tough. I look at that forward pack and I see a group of tough men.
“I also want us to be an incredibly tight group of players that have each other's backs, and I want us to play with that passion and energy you’d expect of a Lions squad.”
However, whilst Lions announcement day will always bring elation to those selected, there will also be heartbreak for those who didn’t make the cut.
Notable omissions include Jamie George, Darcy Graham, Jack Willis and perhaps most surprisingly of all, Irish fly-half Sam Prendergast.
Whilst many felt the Irish sentiment of Farrell would make Prendergast a shoo-in, his poor performance last weekend against Northampton in the Champions Cup semi-finals perhaps showed he wasn’t ready for the challenge of a Lions tour.
Instead, Farrell has chosen to go with the three fly-halves of Finn Russell, Fin Smith and Marcus Smith.
“I think if you look at the two Finn’s, they are two genuine out-and-out fly-halves that play a fantastic brand of rugby,” Farrell added.
“Marcus, whether it be at 10 or 15, that type of blend is important, and we need to cover all types of bases in that regard.”
Another player who missed out on a potential fourth consecutive tour was Farrell’s son, Owen.
However, despite not being picked, it seems as though the door is being left open for a potential addition as well as for other players who can still prove their fitness.
“He was in the conversation, of course, an experienced player like that, but we got to a point where, like a few other players, Owen is still trying to find his way back to fitness,” Farrell explained.
“There are 38 players picked, which leaves a couple of spots open to us if and when needed.”
Bringing it back to the 38 players selected, Ireland has the largest contingent with almost 40 per cent of their players making up the squad, whereas only two Welsh players, Jac Morgan and Gloucester’s Tomos Williams, were included following Wales’ poor Six Nations campaign.
“I didn’t feel any pressure at all [to include Welsh players],” Farrell added.
“I said it in regards to the selection of players and staff. After we selected the squad, Ieuan [Evans - Lions chairman] was counting the numbers from different countries, and we honestly hadn’t done that before.
“It’s not in our interest to do that. Everyone’s an individual, and it doesn’t matter where you come from. The numbers are the numbers, but the individuals deserve it.”
With the squad finally announced, excitement and attention can now turn to the tour.
The Lions' first fixture will be in just over a month against Argentina at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin before the touring party flies out to Australia. They begin their fixtures down under against Western Force in Perth, with the first Test against the Wallabies on the 19th July at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
After a drawn series in 2017 against New Zealand and a 2-1 defeat in the Covid-impacted 2021 tour of South Africa, Farrell will be hoping to emulate the heroics of the last time the Lions went down under as they aim to claim a first series win for 12 years.
2025 British and Irish Lions Squad:
Forwards- Tadhg Beirne, Ollie Chessum, Jack Conan, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Scott Cummings, Tom Curry, Ben Earl, Zander Fagerson, Tadhg Furlong, Ellis Genge, Maro Itoje (c), Ronan Kelleher, Joe McCarthy, Jac Morgan, Henry Pollock, Andrew Porter, James Ryan, Dan Sheehan, Pierre Schoeman, Will Stuart, Josh van der Flier (Leinster Rugby/Ireland)
Backs- Bundee Aki, Elliot Daly, Tommy Freeman, Jamison Gibson-Park, Mack Hansen, Huw Jones, Hugo Keenan, Blair Kinghorn, James Lowe, Alex Mitchell, Garry Ringrose, Finn Russell, Fin Smith, Marcus Smith, Sione Tuipulotu, Duhan van der Merwe, Tomos Williams
