Some months ago, I spoke to a professional rugby coach who said he expected Andy Farrell to take three fly-halves to Australia: Finn Russell, Owen Farrell and Marcus Smith. Back then, most would have agreed; but now two of those three are looking dubious at best.
Nothing short of stepping on a landmine will stop Finn Russel going on tour. Despite another indifferent Scottish Six Nations he has so much credit in the bank he cannot play badly enough to get dropped.
By contrast, the two Englishmen are watching their Lions chances evaporate in real time. Farrell junior’s move to Racing 92 has been somewhere between disappointing and unmitigated disaster. The Parisians big spenders are fighting off TOP14 relegation and Farrell has just 155 minutes on the pitch since the end of October and none since the end of January.
Meanwhile, Marcus Smith has lost the England number 10 jersey to namesake Fin and no one is missing him. He cis not a contender to tour as a fullback, and not just because Blair Kinghorn and Hugo Keenan are in such good form. He lost three high balls consecutively in the first half alone against Italy and stood statuesque as Ross Vincent ran past him to score the visitors’ second try.
The fly-halves to advance their Lions causes are Ireland’s Sam Prendergast (who was bruleed by French blowtorches on Saturday) and the aforementioned Fin Smith, who in three games has locked down the England jersey better than Macrus ever did. The problem is that these two players have a combined age of forty-four and a combined test start tally of nine.
Should Russell stumble across a landmine somewhere in Sydney city centre, would Farrell senior feel comfortable throwing either of them in the biggest rugby match outside a Rugby World Cup final? And yet, the only other option playing Six Nations rugby is Wales’ Gareth Anscombe. He has plenty of experience and knows how to beat Australia, but when I suggested him on a podcast last week I was almost laughed offline.
Andy Farrell’s Lion’s salary is rumoured to be as high as £750,000. He’ll earn every penny of it getting this one selection right.