By Gary Watton
June 20 2013

The Lions team to face those nice humble, modest Australians in the first test was pretty much as the experts and media pundits had predicted, but with one notable exception.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Pictures Empics

Whilst all and sundry had hailed Mako Vunipola as a nailed-on certainty for the opening skirmish, the selectors have thought otherwise. I for one am firmly in agreement.

The absolute bottom line for any forward pack is an ability to hold their own in the scrums and the line-outs, or better still to boss both set-piece areas. For all of Vunipola's talents at ball-carrying, Corbisiero gets the nod, and rightly so, because he is a formidable scrummager. England badly missed this London Irish stalwart in the last Six Nations campaign.

Predictably, Tom Youngs has been preferred to Hibbard [for the time being], with Rory Best a distant third. Tom Croft also gets the opportunity to add to his caps from the South African venture of four years ago. Croft should feel flattered at seeing off the challenge of such worthy candidates as Dan Lydiate and the extremely unfortunate Sean O'Brien who doesn't even make the bench.

There are a number of Englishmen waiting in the wings to come on as replacements if this Welsh team, plus guests, doesn't deliver in the first hour against the Wallabies. I think that we can safely say that the performance from this particular personnel will be a few levels higher than was in evidence in the debacle against the Brumbies.

Come on you Lions. Let us hear you roar.

Gary Watton; author and sport statistician [see http://sporthistorian.blog.com