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16th July 2025
11:15am BST
'History is written by the victors', and this looks like it will be the case with Andy Farrell and his selection calls for the Lions squad.
He first came under fire for picking Mack Hansen over the in-form Darcy Graham, although it has been shown that Graham's Scotland teammate, Duhan van der Merwe, is the man he should have been selected ahead of.
Then came the shouts of nepotism when calling up his son, Owen Farrell. But his cameo off the bench last Saturday against AUSNZ XV, showed that his selection was warranted.
Comparisons were then made between Farrell and ex-Lions head coach Warren Gatland, who came in for severe criticism in 2017 for Welsh favouritism.
These comparisons arose when Jamie Osborne and Tom Clarkson were called up; both men inexperienced internationally and not part of Ireland's first-choice 23s.
This favouritism label will not have been helped by the comments of Jack Conan, who has admitted that Ireland players in Lions camp will be a lot more suited to the "style and structure" implemented by Farrell.
He said: “Yeah, 100 per cent. I don’t think things are massively different with how we do them in Ireland, with attacking style and structure and things like that.
“Obviously, there are some different names and different bits but there is definitely a level of comfort in knowing the way we want to play. It’s second nature to a lot of the Irish lads because it’s what we do day in and day out in camp.
“But then you have different coaches, ‘JD’ [John Dalziel] and ‘Wig’ [Richard Wigglesworth], who do things a little bit differently than maybe we would do in Ireland, so there’s always learning and there’s always upskilling.
“Ireland is one step and the Lions is then another step above, so you’re always being challenged by the coaches to be better.”
However, when all is said and done, and if the Lions clean up against Australia, as they are expected to, then history will be kind to Andy.
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