Sir Ian McGeechan has picked his star-studded British & Irish Lions squad to head to South Africa in 2021 for The Telegraph – and a number of big name stars miss out.
The Leeds-born former fly half, 74, was also recently speaking to ruck.co.uk as part of Vodafone’s new British & Irish Lions initiative, which uses gaming technology to transform fans into ‘Digital Lions’ via the new 2021 Lions Tour app.
Scottish stars were thin on the ground in the past two tour squads for 2013 and 2017, but McGeechan is confident Finn Russell can lead a host of more further Scottish selections this time around, especially while playing rugby they have produced under Gregor Townsend, one of McGeechan’s Lions stars back in the late 1990s.
“I think Gregor will be very pleased with what players have achieved,” he explained when reflecting on the progress Scotland have made since Townsend’s arrival in 2017.
“They probably should have won in Dublin (against Ireland), to win in Italy not concede, then win in France shows they have changed. They’ve been good off the ball – I think that’s been the biggest step forward for Scotland.
“Scotland haven’t always had a strong group which I think is important. They were playing so poorly in 2009 that it was hard to justify selecting players (for the Lions).
“I would take Finn Russell,” added McGeechan of the 28 year old who was called up as cover for the 2017 Lions tour to New Zealand but didn’t play a Test match.
Here is his full squad:
Back-three (8)
- Josh Adams (Wales)
- Andrew Conway (Ireland)
- Elliot Daly (England)
- Stuart Hogg (Scotland)
- Jordan Larmour (Ireland)
- Jonny May (England)
- Anthony Watson (England)
- Liam Williams (Wales)
Centres (5)
- Jonathan Davies (Wales)
- Robbie Henshaw (Ireland)
- Sam Johnson (Scotland)
- Henry Slade (England)
- Manu Tuilagi (England)
Fly-halves (3)
- Dan Biggar (Wales)
- Owen Farrell (England)
- Finn Russell (Scotland)
