Lions Tour: Lions play ACT Brumbies today

The Lions will play their last mid-week game of their tour of Australia against this season’s Super 12 Champions, the ACT Brumbies.

The Lions show 14 changes from the team that started against Australia in the first test last weekend, with Martin Corry the only player to keep his place.

Lions coach Graham Henry has decided to rest as many of his test players as possible despite the Brumbies representing one of the biggest games of the tour outside of the test games.

Although the Canberra-based team will be missing several of its key players who are on duty with the Australian team, such as Stephan Larkham and Andrew Walker, they are still expected to provide a difficult challenge to the tourists.

Some of the starters in today’s game will feel that they deserve a place in the team for the tests and will be out to prove that Henry was wrong to drop them to the mid-week side.

Three Irishmen will start the game with Ronan O’Gara hoping to establish a place on the bench for the next test game, while Jeremy Davidson and David Wallace also line-up.

Malcolm O’Kelly and Tyrone Howe also feature on the bench and will probably get a run-out at some stage in the game.

The Lions team in full is: Balshaw, Cohen, Taylor, Gibbs, Healey, O’Gara, Dawson, Morris, West, Young, Davidson, Murray, Wallace, Williams and Corry.