Lions captain Tadhg Beirne warns against players becoming desperate to advance Test selection claims

Lions captain Tadhg Beirne. Picture: Billy Stickland/Inpho

Will this be the game when the British & Irish Lions finally click into gear? If it doesn’t happen at the Adelaide Oval on Saturday morning against a strong AUSNZ Invitational XV then the alarm bells will start to ring even louder with the opening Test against Australia up next.

At least the Lions will have some breathing space and the opportunity to actually train once this final tour match before the Test. When they arrive in Brisbane on Sunday they will have a seven-day lead-in to the Suncorp Stadium clash with the Wallabies. 

The tourists have been on a relentless schedule of a game every three or four days followed by a flight to the next city, leaving Andy Farrell and his coaching staff with only limited time to make the fixes that are clearly needed after four performances against Australia’s Super Rugby provinces that have thrown up a variety of problems, not least at the breakdown where the refereeing has been laissez-faire to say the least.

The head coach understandably wants to see further improvement from Saturday’s outing in South Australia but the sense is he is itching to get to Brisbane for some quality training time after a fortnight of meetings and walk-throughs between matches and air travel.

That will not excuse another disjointed outing, however. Farrell pinpointed the areas he wants to see the Lions progress in after naming a team captained by Tadhg Beirne, one of four Irish starters alongside fellow lock James Ryan, right wing Mack Hansen and full-back Hugo Keenan, for whom a Test place is now tantalisingly close following the knee injury sustained by Blair Kinghorn against the Brumbies in Canberra on Wednesday.

“Keep on rolling forward,” Farrell said of his hopes for Saturday’s performance. “We always said that we’d need to improve the breakdown, we’d need to improve our understanding.

“There’s always going to be something within the game. Take our set-piece, which I think is continually improving. Our game understanding is better, but it needs to keep getting better the whole time.

Tadhg Beirne and Head coach Andy Farrell at the Press conference in St Peter's College. Picture: Billy Stickland/Inpho

“I think the main thing for me would be continuity of our play. Sometimes we put a good few moments together and then… I don’t think our discipline is poor at all, in fact, the penalty count doesn’t show that, I just think sometimes it’s at the wrong time which gives the opposition an out. So, just putting more moments together.” 

That the Lions will want to do that against a physically imposing and powerful side coached by Les Kiss and Ian Foster - and featuring eight All Blacks - is a challenge welcomed by Farrell seven days out from the first Test. 

Meanwhile, Captain Beirne outlined additional motivations for a group of Lions who are looking to atone for a below-par performance seven days ago in a hard-fought victory against the Waratahs in Sydney.

“It’s a pretty similar group from last week that played,” the Munster skipper said, “and I think a lot of us felt like we probably didn’t do ourselves justice in some of those things. So everyone will be gunning to perform, to elevate the performance there.

“So winning is the main objective for sure but overall we want to put in a team performance. That’s the focus because I think if we put in a team performance the result will then look after itself.” 

Beirne also warned against players becoming desperate to advance their individual Test selection claims.

“Faz says it to us a lot but everyone wants to be in that Test team, 100 per cent, and everyone wants to put their hand up but the second you try to do that on your own you’re being desperate. And if you’re being desperate you’re really doing yourself no favours and you’re doing your team-mates no favours.

“So the focus, or what I’ll be focusing on anyway, is making sure we’re the best team-mates we can be for one another and if I can make someone else look good and it gets them into the Test team then I’ve done a pretty good job.

“I think that’s the way we should be focusing on the game, we should be trying to make each other look as good as we can.” 

 The captain is correct. This is no time for solo runs, the Lions will only profit by showing a united front.

AUNZ INVITATIONAL XV: S Stevenson; AJ Lam, N Laumape, D Havili (co-captain), M Koroibete; T Edmed, F Fakatava; A Ross, B Paenga-Amosa, J Toomaga-Allen; A Blyth, L Salakaia-Loto (co-captain); S Frizell, P Samu, H Sotutu Replacements: K Eklund, J Fusitu’a, G Dyer, M Philip, J Brial, K Thomas, H McLaughlin-Phillips, J Campbell. 

BRITISH & IRISH LIONS: H Keenan; M Hansen, H Jones, S Tuipulotu, D van der Merwe; F Smith, B White; P Schoeman, L Cowan-Dickie, W Stuart; T Beirne – captain, J Ryan; H Pollock, J Morgan, B Earl.

Replacements: R Kelleher, A Porter, F Bealham, S Cummings, J van der Flier, A Mitchell, M Smith, O Farrell.

Referee: Andrea Piardi (Italy).