Lions 2025

Wales scrum-half Tomos Williams has been ruled out of the rest of the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia with Scotland's Ben White called up. Gloucester's Williams was forced off the field with a hamstring injury after scoring a try in the 54-7 win over Western Force in Perth on Saturday. ''This is desperately sad news for Tomos,'' said Lions tour manager Ieuan Evans. ''He is an exemplary Lion who had a brilliant season having joined the Tour as The League once known as the Premiership iership player of the season. He lit up this Lions tour with both his personality and his talent.'' Williams' departure means there is now only one Welshman remaining in the 38-strong squad in flanker Jac Morgan. Scotland scrum-half White will join the camp from Whangarei in New Zealand where he was preparing to face the Maori All Blacks, Fiji and Samoa this summer. Ireland's Jamison Gibson-Park will make his first start of the Lions tour at nine against the Queensland Reds on Wednesday, having recovered from a glute injury. Head coach Andy Farrell confirmed Williams' injury ''was worse than expected''. ''He's an outstanding player - he's played unbelievably well,'' said Farrell. ''But we won't just miss the player, we'll miss the bloke. "He's everything you want to have on a tour which makes it tougher for us all.''

Stephen Jones is such a pompous @r$e - 4/10 is a ridiculous mark - obviously doesn't like Pollock so deducts 2 or 3 marks from a sensible score in a bid to undermine his chances.

Having said that, other media have gone in the opposite direction - Rugby Paper had Pollock on pages 1/3/4/5 including the lead pic on p1, "Pollock runs riot" p1 headline etc. In the match report author Adam Hathaway referred to Andy Farrell having to board "the Pollock hype train which is now going full steam" - he (the writer) could have added, but didn't, a reference to: "the train which I am co-driving".

The OTT hype just succeeds in making the 20-y-o player a marked man. He's a real talent, but no need to go overboard. Back row remains really hard to call. I think Farrell will go with a hybrid/bigger option at 6 ie Chessum or Beirne, that leaves a lot of competition for 7 and 8 shirts plus 1 or 2 bench spots from (in no particular order) Pollock, Morgan, Earl, Curry, Conan and Josh vdF