Warren Gatland Confirms Exciting Back-Row Combination For Wednesday’s Game Vs The Sharks
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Nice.
British and Irish Lions boss Warren Gatland was in good form yesterday evening following his side’s impressive tour opening win against the Stigma Lions.
The tourists racked up eight tries in a 56-14 victory, with Welsh winger Josh Adams bagging four tries as attention now turns to Wednesday’s first midweek game against the Sharks, once again in Johannesburg.
While Gatland isn’t set to name his team for the fixture until tomorrow, the New Zealander gave away his back-row combination in his post-match press conference yesterday with Tom Curry, Josh Navidi and Sam Simmonds set to form a deadly trio.
England fans will be wondering why they’re yet to see Curry and Simmonds in a back-row alongside each other but finally will on Wednesday thanks to Gatland, while Welsh fans will be delighted to see Navidi get a run following his late call-up, with many disappointed he missed out in the first place.
“The pleasing thing is we’ve got so much competition,” Gatland said when referencing his options in the back-row.
“It’ll be interesting to see next week when we have a different sort of back-row with Tom Curry, [Josh] Navidi and Sam Simmonds. That’s a pretty exciting back-row.
“The competition is huge. At the moment we’re not really trying to predict what a Test side is going to look like, we’re just gonna let that unfold, and keep seeing how the players perform and how the combinations look.
“Then we’ll start looking at our options.”
“We’re gonna keep an open mind of how we play and how we keep improving.”
The back-row is certainly going to be one of the most interesting areas to watch with Tadhg Beirne starring against Japan and Hamish Watson getting named man of the match yesterday,
What back-row would you go with?