Australia release two Reds players to face Lions
Western Force v British and Irish LionsDate: Saturday, 28 June Venue: Optus Stadium, Perth Time: 11:00 BST Coverage: Live text commentary on BBC Sport website
Centre Hunter Paisami and hooker Matt Faessler have been released by Australia to play for Queensland Reds against the British and Irish Lions in their match next week.However, six other Reds players - including Wallabies captain Harry Wilson and key back row Fraser McReight - have instead stayed with Australia to prepare for their warm-up Test against Fiji on 6 July.Head coach Joe Schmidt's decision to allow Paisami and Faessler to return to the Reds for the match on 2 July follows tension over whether the hosts' big names will be allowed to play against the Lions for their Super Rugby sides.
Lions chief executive Ben Calveley had warned holding back Test players for the fixtures was contrary to an agreement with Rugby Australia and risked devaluing the tour.However Schmidt has argued it is counterproductive to release all Wallabies back to their provincial sides as he attempts to prepare for the three-Test series.He also pointed out the Lions will not put out a first-choice line-up for every match, with a Test team and midweek side made up of more fringe squad members invariably emerging.Calveley and Rugby Australia counterpart Phil Waugh met on Wednesday to discuss the issue, before Schmidt opted to release Faessler and Paisami.Fly-half Ben Donaldson, who will stay in the Wallabies camp instead, admitted it would have been "awesome" to play for Western Force on Saturday in the Lions' first match on Australian soil.
"Yes and no," he said when asked if he regretted not being able to turn out for the Perth-based side."Obviously it is out of the players' control - we do what the coaches want, we get the schedule and we come into camp."There are four Force boys here [retained by the Wallabies], five back there, so there is a good share back there ready to rip in this weekend."It would have been awesome to play - any game you get to play against the Lions is pretty cool - but we are in camp, preparing for Fiji next week and we are really excited to watch the Force boys play at the weekend."Donaldson is one of three fly-halves in the Wallabies squad, competing with Tom Lynagh to back up first-choice Noah Lolesio. If selection goes against him, he could miss out on facing the Lions at all.Force finished ninth in this season's Super Rugby Pacific table, the lowest of any of the Australian sides."Yeah, they will win I reckon," Donaldson said with a smile when asked about the outcome of Saturday's match."It is an awesome experience for them and a great challenge, you saw the Brumbies win 12 years ago so it is not impossible."Lions assistant coach Andrew Goodman said he expects all the Super Rugby sides to raise their game considerably for a meeting with the Lions that only comes around once every 12 years."If you watch a Force team or a Reds team during Super Rugby, it's not an indication of what you're going to get against a Lions team," he said."It's a once-in-a-life opportunity for most of those guys, so the level of intensity is going to be through the roof."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
'Like Outlander' - Schoeman all in with Scotland & Lions
The television show Outlander, writer and artist Kahlil Gibran and Perth's mining heritage don't often all get mentioned in the same media Schoeman certainly comes across as one of the more philosophical interviewees in the British and Irish Lions camp touring South Africa-born Scotland prop, 31, is one of eight players born outside the British Isles and Ireland in Andy Farrell's squad."If you're good enough to play for your country and then you're good enough to play for the Lions and you're selected, obviously you're going to do that," said Schoeman, who has 42 Scotland caps after qualifying through residency."Scotland is home for us, my wife and myself and other players as well. You embrace that, you fully take that on."It's like Outlander. You move to a different country and now that's your house. You live there. You buy into the culture and now to represent the British and Irish Lions, you fully buy into that, you fully submerge into that."Nothing else matters, not your past, not the future, it's about the now."Kahlil Gibran says it in one of his books quite well and that is, 'Yesterday's gone forever, tomorrow might never come, now is the time to live'."That's what you do as Lions. It's about the now, this tour that's what really matters." Saturday's second warm-up match for the Lions has a Scottish connection of its own, taking place in Perth."It was massive for gold mining so we know all about Perth now," added Schoeman."We love Perth. Perth is actually from the Scottish Perth town. We know some great stats about it. It's the most isolated city in the world."We respect the Western Force, we know they're going to up the ante. It's a once in a lifetime for most of those blokes. They're going want to prove they're good enough to go against the British and Irish Lions, so we have to go beyond and prove why we're the British and Irish Lions."It's going to be a brilliant spectacle. It's going to be enjoyable."Schoeman featured for the final 21 minutes as the Lions lost 28-24 to Argentina in Dublin on the focus turns to tour matches in Australia and, alluding to Gibran's philosophy again, Schoeman is giving no thought to the first Test on 19 July."It's not focusing on what's ahead, it's about now," he said."You have to feel the responsibility of, what's it like, 50,000 fans or more coming to Australia, so you have a massive obligation, a responsibility."And if you're not pulling together, there's no space for dead weight on this team. Everybody needs to push in the same direction."
BBC News
5 hours ago
- BBC News
Wales head to Japan seeking an end to painful run
Wales set off for Japan on Wednesday hoping the Two-test trip will see them end their painful run of international who are under the guidance of caretaker coach Matt Sherratt, will face Eddie Jones' Japan side in Kitakyushu on Saturday, July 5, with the second Test in Kobe a week suffered a 17th straight Test defeat - a record for a tier one nation - when they were hammered 68-14 at home by England in miserable stretch has seen Wales sink to an all-time lowest position of 12th in the world rankings, with Japan one position below them. Wales will arrive in Japan on Thursday for nine days of preparation as they seek a first international win since October 2023, with Sherratt's side aiming to give the chaotic Welsh rugby scene a much-needed boost. Lake leads squad featuring six uncapped players There are six uncapped players in the travelling party, while hooker Dewi Lake has been given the leads the 33-man squad in the absence of flanker Jac Morgan, who is with the British and Irish Lions in Australia along with Gloucester scrum-half Tomos captain Liam Belcher, Dragons prop Chris Coleman, Ospreys trio Garyn Phillips, Keelan Giles and Reuben Morgan-Williams and Scarlets back Macs Page are the fresh faces in second row Ben Carter, Scarlets fly-half Sam Costelow and Bath tight-head prop Archie Griffin return for Wales having missed the Six Nations due to injury, while Kieran Hardy, Alex Mann, Josh Macleod, James Ratti, Johnny Williams and Cameron Winnett have been handed number eight and Wales centurion Taulupe Faletau will provide experience alongside the likes of Josh Adams, Nicky Smith, Aaron Wainwright and Elliot Dee, who are the four survivors from the squad which went to the 2019 World Cup in Japan. Some notable absentees are Dafydd Jenkins, Adam Beard, Will Rowlands, Henry Thomas, Ellis Mee, Gareth Anscombe, Max Llewellyn, Nick Tompkins, James Botham, Evan Lloyd and Morgan Morse, who are missing due to a combination of injuries, being rested and Nicky Smith, Gareth Thomas, Garyn Phillips, Keiron Assiratti, Chris Coleman, Archie Griffin, Dewi Lake (capt), Liam Belcher, Elliot Dee, Ben Carter, Teddy Williams, Freddie Thomas, James Ratti, Taine Plumtree, Aaron Wainwright, Alex Mann, Taulupe Faletau, Tommy Reffell, Josh Kieran Hardy, Reuben Morgan-Williams, Rhodri Williams, Sam Costelow, Dan Edwards, Ben Thomas, Johnny Williams, Joe Roberts, Macs Page, Josh Adams, Tom Rogers, Blair Murray, Keelan Giles, Cameron Winnett. Who are the coaches? Wales are still searching for a permanent successor to Warren Gatland, who left his role as head coach in February after a Six Nations defeat to coach Sherratt was asked to take charge for the final three games of that tournament and was then given the caretaker role for backroom staff will feature his Cardiff defence coach Gethin Jenkins, Harlequins duo Danny Wilson (forwards) and Adam Jones (scrum) and Gloucester's Rhys Thomas (assistant forwards coach).Wilson and Jenkins are new additions just for this trip before they return to their clubs, while former full-back Leigh Halfpenny has taken what the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) describe as a skills coach will include responsibility for kicking with the senior squad, a role occupied by Neil Jenkins for almost 20 coaches who were part of Gatland's backroom staff, including Jonathan Humphreys, Mike Forshaw, Alex King and Rob Howley, will - like Jenkins - not be involved in Japan. What about the opposition? Wales have won 13 of their 14 matches against Japan since they first met in solitary victory came in 2013, with a 23-8 win in Tokyo masterminded by Australian Jones, who is now back in charge of the Cherry return to Japan came in the wake of the 2023 World Cup, where he was in charge of an Australia side who were dumped out in the group disappointing display in that tournament included a 40-6 hammering by Gatland's Wales in have won four games and lost seven since Jones' re-appointment, and were beaten by 40 points or more by New Zealand, France and England last have not played a game since November 2024 but face a Maori All Blacks side from New Zealand on Saturday, 28 June in named a 37-strong training squad that included university student Jingo Takenoshita as one of 16 uncapped players. There was just one player with more than 50 caps in the training camp, with 87-cap back-row Michael Leitch - a veteran of four World Cups with the Brave Blossoms – likely to be a familiar face to Welsh hopes the heat and humidity in Kitakyushu and Kobe could give Japan an advantage over Wales, who have been preparing for the brutal conditions with intense fitness sessions in a heat chamber at their training base in the Vale and Glamorgan hotel. Wales v Japan head-to-head Non-capped TestsWales 62-14 Japan, Cardiff, 6 October 1973Japan 12-56 Wales, Osaka, 21 September 1975Japan 6-82 Wales, Tokyo, 24 September 1975Wales 29-24 Japan, Cardiff, 22 October TestsWales 55-5 Japan, Cardiff, 16 October 1993Wales 57-10 Japan, Bloemfontein, 27 May 1995 Wales 64-15 Japan, Cardiff, 9 October1999Japan 10-64 Wales, Osaka, 10 June 2001Japan 30-53 Wales, Tokyo, 17 June 2001Wales 98-0 Japan, Cardiff, 26 November 2004Wales 72-18 Japan, Cardiff, 20 September 2007Japan 18-22 Wales, Osaka, 8 June 2013Japan 23-8 Wales, Tokyo, 15 June 2013Wales 33-30 Japan, Cardiff, 19 November 2016.
Rhyl Journal
5 hours ago
- Rhyl Journal
Overseas-born players ‘fully submerged' in Lions culture
The Scotland prop is one of eight Lions players who were born, raised and educated in South Africa, New Zealand or Australia but qualify for their home unions through residency or family lineage. Players who hail from the southern hemisphere representing the Lions is nothing new, but the number of them present in Andy Farrell's squad has caused a stir. Our second match city and first in Australia: Perth! 🇦🇺#Lions2025 — British & Irish Lions (@lionsofficial) June 25, 2025 Lions great Willie John McBride said it 'bothered' him, while former England scrum-half Danny Care declared that 'it doesn't sit that well with me'. But Schoeman insists they are ready to give everything in the quest to complete a series victory over the Wallabies, with Saturday's fixture against Western Force their first assignment on Australian soil. 'If you're good enough to play for your country, you're good enough to play for the Lions and you're selected, then obviously you're going to do that,' said Schoeman, who made five appearances for South Africa Under-20s in 2014. 'Playing for the Lions is massive. Scotland is home for us, my wife and myself. I know that's for the other players as well, like Mack Hansen has made Ireland home. 'You embrace that. You fully take that on. It's like the series Outlander – you move to a different country and now that's your house. You live there. 'If you work for one of the big four in finance, you get the opportunity, you're going to go for it. And you can really make that home. 'But this is much different. To represent the British and Irish Lions, you fully buy into that and its culture. You fully submerge into that. Nothing else matters. Not your past, not the future. It's about the now. 'Yesterday is gone forever, tomorrow might never come, now is the time to live. That's what we do as Lions. It's about the now, this tour. This is what really matters.' The Lions arrived in Perth on the back of a 28-24 defeat by Argentina in Dublin, where they were given a taster of the support to come in Australia. A sold-out Aviva Stadium was swamped in red for the tour send-off and Schoeman insists it is essential to deliver for the hoards of fans who will make the journey Down Under. 'It was an amazing experience in Dublin to see the red army. It was incredible,' he said. 'You have to feel the responsibility of 50,000 or more fans coming to Australia. So you have a massive obligation and responsibility. 'We as the selected guys, management and players in this team have to make it happen. 'There's no space for dead weight on this team. Everyone has to push in the same direction. 'It's about driving this whole team towards a collective goal of going beyond and being back-to-back winners against Australia.'
