Brian O'Driscoll and Keith Wood have been included in the Lions team to play New South Wales Waratahs on Saturday in the fifth match of their 10-game tour of Australia with Ronan O'Gara in the replacements. Lions coach Graham Henry had been hoping to select his top team with the first test against Australia just 10 days away, but was prevented from doing so because of injuries and uncertainty in some positions.
"This is not the test team," Henry said. "We've still got some question marks over some positions, so we'll have to wait until after next Tuesday's match against New South Wales Country before we really know."
Henry said he had told players that everyone was still in contention for test spots, although less importance would be placed on the midweek matches from here on in. Henry said time was running out for the Lions and they needed to focus all their attention on the tests.
"We think we need to put our eggs in the test match basket now," he said. "Most of our work now will go into the nucleus of the test team. We're trying to look at various options for the test. This is a skeleton of the test team but a lot of positions are still up for grabs."
Henry said the loss to Australia A had reminded players of just how hard a challenge they faced in trying to beat the full-strength Wallaby side, adding that the lineout and the scrum, and also the breakdown were major areas of concern.
Lions team: 15-Iain Balshaw; 14-Dafydd James, 13-Brian O'Driscoll, 12-Will Greenwood, 11-Jason Robinson; 10-Jonny Wilkinson, 9-Matt Dawson; 8-Scott Quinnell, 7-Neil Back, 6-Lawrence Dallaglio, 5-Danny Grewcock, 4-Martin Johnson (captain); 3-Phil Vickery, 2-Keith Wood, 1-Darren Morris.
Replacements: 16-Tom Smith, 17-Robin McBryde, 18-Martin Corry, 19-Richard Hill, 20-Austin Healey, 21-Ronan O'Gara, 22-Ben Cohen.
Filed by Sinéad Kissane
