Finn Russell offers “something a little different” for the British and Irish Lions once the third test breaks up in the final quarter, believes head coach Warren Gatland.
The Scotland stand-off has been struggling most of the tour to South Africa with an achilles injury but has been brought on to the bench for the deciding test in Cape Town this weekend.
Scotland captain Stuart Hogg has been dropped out of the squad. Prop Rory Sutherland and centre Chris Harris are also omitted. Ali Price has been restored to the starting scrum-half place, while Duhan van der Merwe keeps his place.
Ireland’s Bundee Aki and Welsh duo Liam Williams and Josh Adams come into the backs. Prop Wyn Jones starts as does veteran Welsh hooker Ken Owens. There are no changes in the rest of the pack.
Lions want tempo in the game
TEAM NEWS 🦁
Here is our #LionsRugby team for the Third and Final #CastleLionsSeries Test Match v @Springboks 💪
Read more below 👇#BoksvLions
— British & Irish Lions (@lionsofficial) August 3, 2021
Gatland wants tempo in the Lions’ game and the return of Price – and a long discussion with the third test match officials – is aimed at that.
“We want to play and create a flow and at the moment South Africa don’t want to do that,” he said.
“We had TMO stoppages, we had stud changes, we had the ref stopping the game for a cramp,” he continued. “That’ll be one of the things I’ll speak to the refs this week about. We can’t have a half lasting 60 minutes.
“It’s important we keep the flow of the game as much as from a spectator point of view as anything else. We want to see some pretty good rugby and we didn’t see much at the weekend.”
Russell ‘fully fit now’
The two stand-offs picked for the first two tests, Dan Biggar and Owen Farrell, were “pretty similar”, said Gatland.
“Finn comes in as someone who is just back to full fitness, it’s taken the full tour,” he said. “But he’s fully fit now. Hopefully in that second half things do loosen up a little bit and we do get some more ball-in-play time, and some tempo. He can come on and add to that.
“Our two 10s are good at what they do, but they’re a little similar. Finn offers us something a little different.”
The head coach insisted the Lions were trying to play rugby, pointing out that the Springboks kicked 22 times in the second half to the Lions’ 10. But he conceded that the Lions “got nothing” out of the aerial game on Saturday.
“Stuart (Hogg) has had the first two games, and one of the definite strengths of Liam Williams is the aerial game,” he continued. “Unfortunately last week our whole back three weren’t great in the air. We put a lot of balls on the ground, so we felt the need to make a couple of changes there.”
Two big injury blows to Springboks
🇿🇦 BREAKING: The Springbok team for the #CastleLionsSeries decider
👏 50 up for De Allende as Reinach and Steyn are called up
🗣️ "It was important to maintain consistency in selection"
🔗 Team announcement: https://t.co/gD3tFd82dZ#StrongerTogether #StrongerForever pic.twitter.com/WO8J8Me8jw— Springboks (@Springboks) August 3, 2021
South Africa will be without scrum-half Faf de Klerk and flanker Pieter-Steph du Toit due to injury. Gatland agreed they were “two big losses” for the Springboks.
“We thought Faf might have had a hamstring issue so we weren’t expecting him to play,” he said. “Same with du Toit. Faf, everything’s on the edge with him. The message to our players this week is we got a little too embroiled in pushing and shoving.
“We need to make sure we stay away from that. Concentrate on the rugby and don’t have guys grabbing and holding each other. Everyone’s on edge and it can happen at times, but let’s get on with playing the game properly.”
Lions team: Liam Williams (Scarlets and Wales); Josh Adams (Cardiff and Wales), Robbie Henshaw (Leinster and Ireland), Bundee Aki (Connacht and Ireland), Duhan van der Merwe (Worcester and Scotland); Dan Biggar (Northampton and Wales), Ali Price (Glasgow and Scotland); Wyn Jones (Scarlets and Wales), Ken Owens (Scarlets and Wales), Tadhg Furlong (Leinster and Ireland); Alun Wyn-Jones (Ospreys and Wales), Maro Itoje (Saracens and England); Courtney Lawes (Northampton and Wales), Tom Curry (Sale and England), Jack Conan (Leinster and Ireland).
Replacements: Luke Cowan-Dickie (Exeter and England), Mako Vunipola (Saracens and England), Kyle Sinckler (Bristol and England, subject to disciplinary hearing), Adam Beard (Ospreys and Wales), Sam Simmonds (Exeter and England), Connor Murray (Munster and Ireland), Finn Russell (Racing 92 and Scotland), Elliot Daly (Saracens and England).