Andy Farrell faces front-row crisis as Zander Fagerson is ruled out of Lions tour of Australia with calf injury
Lions head coach Andy Farrell has been confronted by a pre-tour injury crisis in his front row as one tighthead prop was ruled out of the Australia tour on Monday and another is struggling to regain full fitness.
Scotland's Zander Fagerson has been forced to withdraw from the squad to travel Down Under after failing to recover from a calf injury. Irish titan Tadhg Furlong, who has started the last six Tests played by the Lions – in South Africa in 2021 and in New Zealand in 2017 – has been hampered by a calf problem of his own and is considered a major doubt for Leinster's URC Final against the Bulls from South Africa in Croke Park, Dublin on Saturday.
As forecast, Ireland's Australia-born tighthead Finlay Bealham has been called up to the full squad, as the chosen replacement for Fagerson, while Sale's explosive rookie, Asher Opoku-Fordjour will also travel to Portugal with the Lions today, as cover.
Jamie George is also heading to the Algarve as expected, given the absence of two Irish hookers – Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher – who will be on duty for Leinster.
England tighthead Will Stuart is unavailable for the Lions training camp this week as he is preparing with Bath to face Leicester in the Premiership Final at Twickenham on Saturday, but he is now emerging as the front-runner to wear the No 3 shirt in the Test series against the Wallabies.
The loss of 29-year-old Fagerson – a cornerstone of the Scotland pack – is a savage blow for Farrell snr and his coaching staff, and if Furlong were to be ruled out of the tour too, it would constitute a crisis.
The head coach faces an anxious weekend ahead, as he waits and hopes to avoid any further untimely setbacks – having already lost Leinster and Ireland No 8 Caelan Doris, who had been a prime captaincy contender, to injury.
However, the superpower Irish province have injury doubts about three other Lions this week; centre Garry Ringrose and full-back Hugo Keenan (both calf) and flanker Josh van der Flier (hamstring).
Fagerson hadn't played for Glasgow since early April and reacting to his removal from the Lions squad, Farrell acknowledged that such disruption is inevitable, saying: 'It's tough on Zander to miss out so close to the tour, but now Finlay gets an opportunity to come in and add to the group. This is unfortunately part and parcel of the game, so we always have to be prepared for that.
'But it's great to be finally at the stage where we can get onto the training ground and get to work with these players. Portugal will be really important for us as we look to get our house in order with only a few training sessions before we take on Argentina in Dublin.'
The Lions will hope that Furlong pulls through to be available Down Under. Australia are not the scrum push-overs they were in the past, with Kiwi scrum guru Mike Cron on the Wallabies staff and Angus Bell emerging as one of the world's pre-eminent looseheads last year.
However, they have front-row problems of their own, with Taniela 'Tongan Thor' Tupou enduring an untimely crisis of confidence, having resigned himself to being left out of Joe Schmidt's squad to face the Lions.
Meanwhile, proposed rebel league R360 has been dismissed by a leading sports broadcaster as a 'delusional' concept.
Andrew Georgiou, president and managing director of TNT Sports' parent company, Discovery Sports, said: 'If these folks believe that they are going to grow the revenue by putting this thing on, I think they're delusional.
'What it will do is further complicate what is already a well-functioning rugby ecosystem. The fact that it's being likened to LIV Golf, I think is a perfect analogy. It's commercially unsustainable.'
Premiership Rugby chief executive Simon Massie-Taylor gave his own reaction to news of the R360 mission to form a global league with the world's leading players, adding: 'It's not a threat per se, but we have no idea how it could ever work, definitely for the club game.
'Rugby needs roots, it doesn't need pop-ups. Without those roots, it's very difficult to understand how a system could ever work.'
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