Ben Youngs is the latest player to reveal he won’t be touring with the 2021 British & Irish Lions despite receiving a save-the date from Warren Gatland – and he isn’t the only one.
#1. Ben Youngs
The England scrum-half has made himself unavailable for selection for the British and Irish Lions due to family reasons. The 31-year-old’s wife Charlotte is pregnant with their third child and he felt unable to commit to spending nine weeks away from his family in a biosecure bubble in South Africa.
“Whether I had made the final cut or not, no-one knows anyway,” Youngs told The Telegraph.
“But because of the perspective I have had from four years ago and secondly because I have two young children and a third on the way – my wife is going to be heavily pregnant – this would have been a long period away from them.
“It has been a long couple of seasons now and so I just want to make sure I am here for the family and will be cheering the Lions on from afar.”
DID YOU KNOW? Youngs also withdrew himself from the tour party in 2017 due to family reasons and was replaced by Scotland international Greig Laidlaw