My British & Irish Lions team for the first Test – Andy Goode

The week of the first British & Irish Lions Test has finally arrived and the excitement’s nearly at fever pitch but there aren’t too many close selection calls if we’re being honest.

A couple of the most debatable positions look to have been settled by injuries to Garry Ringrose and Blair Kinghorn. Both may come into contention for the final two Tests but Huw Jones and Hugo Keenan are now almost certainties to start.

Jones might have been selected anyway and his inclusion makes it more likely that we’ll see his Scotland centre partner Sione Tuipulotu lining up alongside him. It’s interesting that the pair haven’t started together alongside Russell yet on tour but that isn’t an issue.

Keenan showed enough against the Invitational AU & NZ side to suggest he’s ready after losing a stone in weight due to illness at the beginning of the tour and he’s a player Andy Farrell knows he can trust with Kinghorn likely sidelined.

The halfbacks pick themselves and there was little doubt he would be the Test starter when the squad was announced over two months ago but Finn Russell has been the most impressive performer on tour for me.

If he and Jamison Gibson-Park combine well and produce their best form, it’s probably what gives the Lions the edge in the series with a lot of other positions looking relatively even when compared with the Wallabies on paper.

James Lowe is a shoo-in on the left wing and his fellow Ireland wing Mack Hansen has definitely put his hand up but Tommy Freeman has scored 17 tries in 15 games for Saints, England and the Lions since the start of the Six Nations so he should get the nod.

The Northampton man’s physical presence, aerial prowess and ability to switch to outside centre in an emergency all set him apart too and I can see him being crucial to the chances of success.

A lot of people have Joe McCarthy starting after he stood out against the Brumbies and Western Force, in particular, but I just think Tadhg Beirne is a Test match animal and I’m not sure you absolutely need McCarthy’s extra size and physicality with the way the Lions are looking to play.

You could argue that you do if Joe Schmidt opts for giants such as Will Skelton and Nick Frost in the second row but I don’t think Farrell is the type of coach who looks as much at the opposition when he’s picking his team as some others do.

The back row has looked like the most competitive area of the team from a long time ago and that remains the case but I don’t think there’s any argument about Jack Conan’s position at number eight.

Either side of him though, I don’t think many would have gone for Ollie Chessum and Jac Morgan a few months ago but they have arguably been the biggest surprises on tour.

Their standout performances won’t have come as a surprise to anyone who knows them well or has watched them at close quarters over the past couple of years but the fact they might edge out the likes of Josh van der Flier, Tom Curry and Ben Earl says it all.

Morgan might be the only Welshman left in the squad but he certainly isn’t a token pick and he’s shone even more surrounded by the best players from the British Isles than he has in a struggling Welsh team.

Chessum only lost to Bath while playing for Leicester in the Premiership this season, such was his influence on the Tigers, and he’s looked to the manner born in a Lions jersey just as much as an England one.

His size, power and work rate make him the obvious choice at blindside but his ability to shift to lock is also vital as it allows Farrell to pick both van der Flier and Henry Pollock on the bench and still have enough cover in the backs from a 5/3 split.

He might not quite have done enough to start but Pollock offers such a point of difference, especially if the Lions are behind late in the game, that he has to be named among the replacements.

I think the front row picks itself and you don’t lose much when the bench comes on either but Ellis Genge is probably the one to have excelled most in that department over the past month and moved himself ahead of Andrew Porter.

Ben White couldn’t have done any more since he joined the squad following Tomos Williams’ injury but Alex Mitchell is still ahead of him in the scrum half depth chart but the other two backs on the bench are interesting because you need cover in all positions.

Owen Farrell looked very good when he came on against the Invitational AU & NZ side, albeit it was late on against a team made up of good individual players that looked like it was thrown together and was falling apart.

I don’t think that’s enough to nudge him ahead of Marcus Smith and Bundee Aki, who provide cover at fly half, full back and centre with Keenan able to shift to the wing if there’s an injury there.

Duhan van der Merwe might have scored a hat-trick in the last warm-up game but they were run-ins, he lacks the versatility necessary for a bench spot and I don’t think many would argue that he’s done enough to force his way in.

You can only beat what’s in front of you but the calibre of opposition in the warm-up games hasn’t been brilliant so things are about to go up several notches on Saturday and I don’t think Farrell’s opinion on the make-up of his Test team will have changed too much since the defeat to Argentina in Dublin.

Australia have only played one game in the past eight months and that didn’t go particularly well against Fiji so it’s hard to know what to expect from them but I’m sure they’ll get better as the series goes on, which only increases the importance of the first Test.

The Wallabies have improved significantly since Schmidt replaced Eddie Jones so the Lions have rightly become less heavy favourites but player for player they still have the edge and it’s a team that should be winning the series.

My Lions team for first Test
15 Hugo Keenan
14 Tommy Freeman
13 Huw Jones
12 Sione Tuipulotu
11 James Lowe
10 Finn Russell
9 Jamison Gibson-Park
1 Ellis Genge
2 Dan Sheehan
3 Tadhg Furlong
4 Maro Itoje (c)
5 Tadhg Beirne
6 Ollie Chessum
7 Jac Morgan
8 Jack Conan

Replacements
16 Ronan Kelleher
17 Andrew Porter
18 Will Stuart
19 Josh van der Flier
20 Henry Pollock
21 Alex Mitchell
22 Marcus Smith
23 Bundee Aki