The Wallabies and British and Irish Lions teams for the second test has been named.
[one_half last=”no”]
Wallabies
1. Benn Robinson
2. Stephen Moore
3. Ben Alexander
4. Kane Douglas
5. James Horwill
6. Ben Mowen
7. Michael Hooper
8. Wycliff Palu
9. Will Genia
10. James O’Connor
11. Joe Tomane
12. Christian Lealiifano
13. Adam Ashley-Cooper
14. Israel Folau
15. Kurtley Beale
16. Saia Faingaa
17. James Slipper
18. Sekope Kepu
19. Rob Simmons
20. Liam Gill
21. Nick Phipps
22. Rob Horne
23. Jesse Mogg[/one_half]
[one_half last=”yes”]
British and Irish Lions
15. Leigh Halfpenny
14. Tommy Bowe
13. Brian O’Driscoll
12. Jonathan Davies
11. George North
10. Jonathan Sexton
9. Ben Youngs
1. Makovina Vunipola
2. Tom Youngs
3. Adam Jones
4. Alun Wyn Jones
5. Geoff Parling
6. Dan Lydiate
7. Sam Warburton
8. Jamie Heaslip
Replacements
16. Richard Hibbard
17. Ryan Grant
18. Dan Cole
19. Tom Croft
20. Sean O’Brien
21. Conor Murray
22. Owen Farrell
23. Alex Cuthbert
[/one_half]
Joe Tomane has been called up for Ioane, and Kurtley Beale has moved into fullback for Berrick Barnes. Onto the bench comes Rob Horne and Jesse Mogg.
Probably most controversial are the decisions that Deans hasn’t made.
- O’Connor gets a second crack at 10. Hopefully he’ll start making some decision this time around. The good news from the ARU is that this is what he and Kurtley were working on it in Hungry Jacks at 4am
- George Smith is nowhere to be seen. Knowing how keen Deans was to have him involved, you can only assume he’s not fully back to fitness
- Wycliff Palu keeps the 8 role. With a match and week’s training under his belt, hopefully Cliffy will be able to play for more than the 15 minutes after each kick off. What more puzzling though is the lack of meaningful cover for him on the bench with the likes of McMeniman and Kimlin in the training squad
For the Lions Gatland has made 5 changes. With O’Connell out Parling comes in, but there is no second row cover on the bench. Lydiate has booted Croft to the pine and Sean O’Brien joins him there. This is quite the opposite strategy to the Wallabies and could telling.
Apparently Mike Phillips is injured, so Youngs comes in at 9 and Murray hits the bench. Bowe is back from injury so Cuthbert becomes a reserve.
Of the changes Gatland said:
“I don’t know who made up ‘don’t change a winning side’. It’s about picking the best possible side to win on Saturday”
