Who leaked the Lions team? Four legitimate suspects

The Times of London predicted the first test XV which would run out against the Springboks in Cape Town, including the dropping of stand-in captain Conor Murray to the bench.

National divisions and divided loyalties mean Lions teams can be tricky political animals to manage, as Graham Henry found out with the 2001 side in Australia.

Gatland brought the team announcement forward by a day after the leak and will change his announcement procedures for the remaining tests. He admitted someone's trust may have been broken.

“I don’t know how that happened,” he said.

“It wasn’t a 100 per cent right. Obviously someone has leaked that out, whether that is on purpose or accidentally or someone has betrayed someone’s trust - whether that’s a player or a staff member.

“So, what I’ll do next week is just name the team to the players and name the team to the press straight away.”

Here we look at four possible suspects to how the team got leaked

There were some suggestions online across social media that the starting XV could have been leaked to the media by a disgruntled player who missed out on selection. However, this doesn't seem likely due to the reported closeness of the group, but you never know.

Likelihood: Not likely

The Lions aren't just a small group of coaches these days. They have a huge team of data analysts, physiotherapists and even a psychologist with them in South Africa. Worth risking your job over? Maybe not, but people do stupid things as we all know.

Likelihood: Certainly possible

Could a player have told a family member or friend in confidence? Absolutely. This seems like the most likely way the team got out, but who was it? Chief Inspector Gatland will be on the case.

Likelihood: Very likely

This has happened numerous times in rugby down the years with the All Blacks discovering a device back in 2016. However, this would normally be the opposition rather than the media.

Likelihood: Unlikely