Australia v Lions: my team

Aside from the excitement over the arrival Down Under of Shane Williams, there is a serious business for the Lions: beating Australia.

A number of injuries have hit Warren Gatland’s squad, and the team I’d pick has taken those into consideration (I’ve left out those who are seen as doubtful). It means, for example, that neither winger would be starting were it not for injuries to others.

Backs (five Welsh, two Irish):

15: Leigh Halfpenny
14: Alex Cuthbert
13: Brian O’Driscoll
12: Jonathan Davies
11: George North
10: Jonathan Sexton
9: Mike Phillips

Waratahs 17-47 Lions

The game has been somewhat overshadowed by the news that Welsh legend Shane Williams has been drafted into the Lions squad.

But there was a game yesterday as well, and in what was an excellent and thoroughly entertaining encounter between the Waratahs and the Lions in Sydney, the visitors emerged 47-17 winners.

The Lions thrashed the NSW Waratahs at the Sydney Football Stadium

But the main outcome of the game has been to throw up a number of selection dilemmas, with many of those on the cusp of a test place performing outstandingly.

Players’ verdict:

15: Leigh Halfpenny – another exemplary kicking performance and two tries. Another quite superb performance, and you wonder if there is anyone outside the Kearney household who still doubts the Welshman is a country mile clear of any competitors for the title of Europe’s best fullback…9/10

Lions squad verdict: the forwards

See also Lions squad verdict: the backs

Dan Cole

What a unit – one of the best scrummagers in world rugby, even if the English pack did get schooled in the Six Nations against Wales

Cian Healy

Another prop whose name had been pencilled into the Lions squad list for some time, although he blotted his copybook somewhat with a stupid stamp on Cole in the Six Nations

Gethin Jenkins

A wonderfully mobile front rower (and I’ll take any excuse to repost a video of him humiliating Ronan O’Gara) whose Six Nations performances demonstrated his relative weakness, the scrum, was not really anything of the sort

Adam Jones