Amid all the deserved acclaim for Garry Ringrose’s honesty about suffering concussion symptoms, a Lions selection gamble was partially hidden, but it was a shock all the same.
As word began to circulate in the morning here that both Scotland centres, Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones, were being left out and replaced by their Irish counterparts, there was a mood of incredulity and disbelief.
Why? It had worked a treat. Tuipulotu scored a try in Brisbane, Jones so nearly scored one of his own and he helped create another. They dovetailed beautifully with compatriot Finn Russell, as usual. Their performances helped the Lions take a 1-0 series lead.
Eventually, when the selection for the second Test was officially announced, Jones was in there at 13 again, alongside Bundee Aki. Cue confusion. What was going on?
It emerged that head coach Andy Farrell had picked Aki and Ringrose together, until the latter finished training and – following a case of concussion already on this tour – admitted to experiencing a headache. His candour meant he had to be stood down, sensibly, so Jones was reprieved. If he hadn’t been, he would have been one of the unluckiest Lions in recent history.
The official explanation for the removal of Tuipulotu, the Scotland captain, was that he had a tight hamstring, but it became apparent that he was going to be demoted anyway, as all the rumours had suggested.
‘Bundee’s well able,’ said Farrell. ‘That type of combination is something we certainly would have trusted anyway.’
So, was it Tuipulotu’s tight hamstring which led to the selection change at inside centre? ‘No, not initially,’ said the head coach – matching Ringrose’s honesty. ‘It all comes into the equation.’
Asked about the midfield combination he has ended up with, Farrell added: ‘They’ll be good. Bundee and Huw will hit it off exactly like any other type of partnership.’ But that is no certainty. The pair have only started together once – against the Reds in Brisbane on July 2.
The old adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ has been chased out of town. There is a widespread perception that Farrell wanted to deploy the Aki-Ringrose double-act all along, but circumstances conspired against him, when the latter suffered a head knock against the Brumbies in Canberra on July 9.
On balance, it was deemed sensible to reunite the Scots at Suncorp Stadium last weekend and they did their duty well, but the writing was on the wall anyway.
There were echoes of the 2013 Lions tour here when team news was being digested and debated this time. Farrell has defaulted to the Irish players he knows – nine of them in the starting XV – just as Warren Gatland went into full-scale Welsh mode for the series decider a dozen years ago.
His decision to select 10 players from the Principality for that tour finale in Sydney unleashed a tide of toxic Irish outrage, when the great Brian O’Driscoll was replaced by Jonathan Davies on legitimate form grounds. Some icons of the sport in Ireland accused Gatland of betraying ‘the whole ethos of the Lions’, before they stormed to a 41-16 victory, to win the series 2-1.
This is no betrayal, nothing of the sort, but it is hard to justify the plan to overhaul the heart of the back line, which has left the Lions with a half Irish, half Scottish cut-and-shut job in midfield. Unless his hamstring was troubling him so much that he couldn’t be considered, Tuipulotu deserved to play again.
There is no room for sentiment in selection, but he duly misses out on an emotional home-coming appearance in front of extended family in Melbourne, where he grew up.
If it ain’t broke… The Glasgow centre has an innate understanding with Russell and Jones. While the argument is that the Lions have been in camp long enough now to have all grown accustomed to each other, they repeatedly spoke about a lack of training time during the hectic, two-games-per-week phase of this tour. Then all the focus was on the Tuipulotu-Jones alliance being prepared for the series opener after Ringrose’s head knock spoiled the plan of deploying him with Aki.
These are two of the preferred men. All coaches have them, of course. Ireland head coach Farrell now has nine Irishmen in his XV and it was 10 before Ringrose’s honest declaration which forced a late reshuffle.
Aki was picked in the match-day squad last week when his familiar midfield partner was unavailable, came on for Tuipulotu with more than a quarter of the game remaining and made very little impact as the Lions lost momentum, but he’s in.
He is a thunderous carrier and breakdown threat, but he cannot match the attacking repertoire of the Scotland captain; a superior distributor who also has an effective kicking game.
Some of the Leinster and Ireland contingent are earning a lot of leeway on this trip, not least James Lowe, who has somehow been retained on the left wing after his erratic performance in Brisbane maintained an extended pattern on this tour.
He has a powerful left boot, but no form to speak of. Granted, there are limited options as Mack Hansen – who was on a roll – is still injured and Daly went home early, but Blair Kinghorn could have been worth the risk out wide.
