Lions in 'good shape' with injuries
British and Irish Lions v ArgentinaVenue: Aviva Stadium, Dublin Date: Friday, 20 June Kick-off: 20:00 BSTCoverage: Live text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app, and updates on BBC Radio 5 Live
British and Irish Lions head coach Andy Farrell believes scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park will be "up and running" by the time the side reach Australia next week.After sitting out Leinster's United Rugby Championship (URC) final victory over the Bulls on Saturday, Gibson-Park - who is widely tipped to be the starting nine come the Test series against the Wallabies - will not feature against Argentina in Dublin on Friday night because of injury.Farrell, though, said the results of a scan on Monday were "pretty positive" and added that those unavailable to face the Pumas in the tour's first game were "all a week or so away from being fit"."Good news on most of the injuries," said Farrell, who will be acting as Lions head coach for the first time on Friday."There's always one or two bumps and bruises that you're trying to nurse, that's the nature of rugby. We're in good shape."
Leicester Tigers scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet has been brought into camp as cover, although England's Alex Mitchell will start at nine at the Aviva Stadium with Wales' Tomos Williams on the bench.Hugo Keenan and Tadhg Furlong also missed out as Leinster claimed their first silverware in four years at Croke Park on Saturday, but the latter will play his first rugby since his side's Investec Champions Cup semi-final defeat by Northampton Saints on 3 May should he come off the bench against Argentina. Furlong, 32, will become a Lion for a third time at the end of a season when he has been dogged by injury and only featured nine times for his province and Ireland."He's fit and ready to go," Farrell said of the tight-head prop, while adding that Scotland and Glasgow centre Huw Jones has trained fully. "He's trained well and as keen as everyone else to get the show on the road."
'Those guys are ahead of the game'
With Leinster, Bath and Leicester Tigers all involved in domestic finals last weekend, and Toulouse's season still ongoing in France, it was a smaller panel that Farrell brought to Portugal last week for a training camp.Although Leinster hooker Ronan Kelleher will be on the bench on Friday night six days after lifting the URC, the remainder of the side picked to face Argentina were present when preparations kicked off."Those guys are ahead of the game. It turned out quite a nice mix for those guys to get ahead of curve [and was] quite a diverse group in terms of combinations and people not playing together," said Farrell."It's nice for that group to have a week where they get settled in and for the other guys to join them on Monday, some on a high, one [Leicester's Ollie Chessum] not, but it's nice for them to have a bit of time to spend with the lads, get to know everyone, and see what's been going on."They've had one training session so it was nice to get everyone together finally."Despite picking from a smaller pool of players, Farrell believes that the talent at his disposal this weekend shows the depth of the touring party."It's exciting. I did an exercise a couple of weeks ago, and I've done it about five times since, of what you think that the Test side could be. You can't even go there because there's such good competition."The exciting thing about Friday night is these guys get to show their team-mates sat in the stand what they're all about. "Ultimately what happens on these tours, you can talk about anything you want to but, these guys, all they're trying to do is gain respect off one another."After facing Argentina, the Lions will fly to Perth and meet Western Force on 28 June with the first Test against Australia taking place in Brisbane on 19 July.
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