Key events
11 mins. More Force ball in the red zone and the pace of their recycling is causing the Lions all sorts of bother as they are once again illegal at the ruck. Harford floats it to touch for another lineout, but in the next possession the home side cough up the ball and Williams gratefully boots it clear for a breather.
Discipline under pressure a serious concern for Andy Farrell.
9 mins. A solid lineout is won on the Lions 5 metre line by the Force and as the maul gathers intent the visitors are illegally changing binding all over the place and Ref O’Keefe pings them once more. The ball is back in the corner for another lineout.
7 mins. The issue that the Lions had out of the edges of their defence vs Argentina is present once more as Pietsch continues his great start by getting into some open space out wide. The scrambling visitors are then too keen at the breakdown and a penalty is awarded to the Force, which they decide to put into the corner.
TRY! Western Force 7 – 7 Lions (Dylan Pietsch)
4 mins. The home side are not too shellshocked by the opening barrage as the wing Pietsch dashes and yoinks the restart from under the noses of the Lions. It puts them on the attack and they show some good handling of their own to find White on the left to drive over through some Lions defensive traffic.
Conversion is added.
TRY! Western Force 0 – 7 Lions (Dan Sheehan)
2 mins. Force tidy up the kick-off and boot it back to the Lions who are straight away moving the ball through hands, Russell conducting. It goes left and then all the way back to the right where Lowe has swapped wings to flick a backhanded offload to Sheehan who crosses the whitewash to open the scoring.
Russell adds two
Kick-off!
Finn Russell kicks deep to get us started
Officials today
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Referee: Ben O’Keeffe (New Zealand)
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Assistant Referees: Paul Williams (New Zealand), James Doleman (New Zealand)
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TMO (Television Match Official): Marius van der Westhuizen (South Africa)
The conditions are wonderful on this Perth evening as the lights are dimmed for the usual disco pyrotechnics to welcome the teams.
Andy Farrell has been speaking to Sky Sports:
“[We want] a little bit more cohesion. We take the good out of the game [against Argentina] as well and we looked dangerous at times but we made too many errors.
“This is a different side again so it will be about how we put or best foot forward when it counts and it counts tonight.
“If you are not excited and don’t have some nerves you’re probably in the wrong jersey. But the players are calm and hopefully come kick-off, they will be ready.”
It appears that Andy’s comments are now created by CoachChatGPT
“Sat by the sea in Madeira.” Ben Mason informs us, “Is it worth me bothering to watch the game on my phone, or am I just spoiling my holiday?”
Why would you watch it when you can read about it here, Ben?
It’s been hard to avoid the sniggering all week regarding the moniker of Western Force back-rower Nick Champion de Crespigny, which you have to admit is a cracker of a name and one that can really only exist in rugby union, sailing or a Jilly Cooper novel.
With Nick having a team-mate today called Darcy Swain, I’m wondering if this is the first time a team have fielded two players with names that sound like they could have been the hottest London society wedding of 1927?
Pre match discourse
Rob Kitson previews the match
And here are Ugo Monye’s thoughts
For a Lions follower, much of theses opening tour matches are all about gathering information and intelligence to inform the discussion of who will be in the Test squad. The cynical fan will point out that Andy Farrell likely picked his team in 2023 and is unlikely to budge much from that; but what are you looking forward to finding out today?
Let me know about this, or anything else on the email. I await your correspondence like the overworked Tadhg Beirne awaits a week off from playing rugby.
Teams
As is the wont and need of a Lions coach, Andy Farrell has made plenty of changes to the side from last week with only Tadhg Beirne and Sione Tuipulotu retaining their starting berths. Among many swaps, Finn Russell has his first tour start at stand-off and England youngling Henry Pollock starts the game at Number 8.
There are six Wallabies in the starting XV for Western Force including Nic White, Ben Donaldson, and Darcy Swain. There is no Kurtley Beale, however, who was ruled out with a hamstring injury.
British & Irish Lions
15 Elliot Daly; 14 Mack Hansen, 13 Garry Ringrose, 12 Sione Tuipulotu, 11 James Lowe; 10 Finn Russell, 9 Tomos Williams; 1 Pierre Schoeman, 2 Dan Sheehan (captain), 3 Tadhg Furlong; 4 Scott Cummings, 5 Joe McCarthy; 6 Tadhg Beirne, 7 Josh van der Flier, 8 Henry Pollock.
Replacements: 16 Ronan Kelleher, 17 Andrew Porter, 18 Will Stuart, 19 Ollie Chessum, 20 Jack Conan, 21 Alex Mitchell, 22 Huw Jones, 23 Marcus Smith
Western Force
15 Ben Donaldson; 14 Mac Grealy; 13 Matt Proctor, 12 Hamish Stewart,; 11 Dylan Pietsch; 10 Alex Harford, 9 Nic White (c); 1 Tom Robertson, 2 Brandon Paenga-Amosa, 3 Ollie Hoskins; 4 Sam Carter, 5 Darcy Swain; 6 Will Harris, 7 Nick Champion de Crespigny, 8 1 Vaiolini Ekuasi
Replacements: 16 Nic Dolly, 17 Marley Pearce, 18 Tiaan Tauakipulu, 19 Lopeti Faifua, 20 Reed Prinsep, 21 Henry Robertson, 22 Max Burey, 23 Bayley Kuenzle
Preamble
There’s much mystique about the British & Irish Lions; chiefly born of the legendary victorious tours of the early 1970s and the 1997 outing to South Africa with it’s associated documentary. This has led many to assume and expect that the Lions is about winning, but for years the tours were more about taking the notion of home country and nostalgia out to the colonies as a celebration of the putative factors that united us. Losing overall usually came in tandem with this.
Handy then, that this year’s tour has managed to uphold tradition and heritage by losing nice and early so all the “invincibles” chat can be shushed. However, the loss v Argentina was not technically part of the actual tour, so maybe not. Either way, this is the first game on Aussie soil and Andy Farrell and his men will be raring to have a W on the board before they cross the country to Queensland later in the week.
In the way is a Western Force side with some test experience smattered across them, not least in experienced scrum half Nic White. A quirky stat among the caps is replacement Australian hooker Nic Dolly, with his only test appearance being single game in 2021… for England.
This should be a nice and comfortable opener down under for the tourists, but let’s see shall we?