Ex-Ireland rugby star makes big claim about the Lions v Argentina in Dublin

Alan Quinlan claims that the Lions' historic first game on Irish soil is mostly about making money.
And the former Munster great believes that current Ireland star Mack Hansen, who is named on the bench against Argentina, was 50-50 to make the cut for Andy Farrell's travelling squad.
There has been a lot of criticism of the price of tickets for Friday night's 1888 Cup clash that pits the Lions against Argentina at the Aviva Stadium, a fixture that will not have full Test status.
However the game will be a sell-out at the 51,700 capacity ground in Dublin 4 as the Lions play their first game before flying to Australia for the tour proper on Saturday morning.
"There's a lot of spend on putting a Lions tour together, paying players, coaches, match fees, hotels," Quinlan told Grosvenor Sport.
"I know there's loads of sponsors there, but it has to generate some money. I'm sure this fixture is about that. The Argentina game is great for the players but it doesn't get the blood flowing really, does it?"
Former Ireland flanker Quinlan missed out on the Lions tour of South Africa in 2009 after picking up a 12-week ban in the Heineken Cup semi-final loss to Leinster.
There are 16 Ireland players due to be on the plane to Australia, with six involved against the Pumas - including Connacht's Hansen, who makes the bench after an ankle injury ended his season early for the province.
"He was someone who was possibly 50-50," said Quinlan. "He has had a few injuries, missed some games, during the Six Nations. I'm not saying that any of these Irish players didn't deserve to get selected.
"Obviously the head coach, who's been involved in numerous other British and Irish Lions tours, has the credibility to make these selections and make these calls based on the players he knows."
While most of the URC final winning Leinster contingent will be watching from the stands - only Rónan Kelleher and Tadhg Furlong are involved on the bench - Quinlan predicts that compatriots Jack Conan and Josh van der Flier are in pole position to start in the back row with England's Tom Curry.
"I think the way the game has gone, there's a lot of guys who can play second or back row, Ollie Chessum, Tadhg Beirne among them, even Maro Itoje," he said.
"Jack Conan is probably your most natural out and out eight. Ben Earl has played there and done very well for England. So has Curr (Tom Curry), but he has started primarily as a Seven.
I think if you were picking a Test team tomorrow you are picking Curry, Conan plus possibly Josh van der Flier on what will be fast tracks in Australia.
"I think they all have arguments in their own right and on paper now you could pick numerous different options who would probably do a very good job and would have a strong argument to be there, which is a good place for this Lions squad to be in.
"They have six warm-up games, essentially there's time for guys to put their hand up and for permutations to appear. Farrell will mix and match.
"I don't think there's too many nailed down positions for the Test side, probably three or four and the rest are up for grabs. Itoje is one, obviously. Dan Sheehan is another one. He's probably the other nailed-on person there alongside Finn Russell and Tommy Freeman."
As for the Test games against the Wallabies to come, Quinlan expects Joe Schmidt to have the hosts primed for the challenge but he predicts that Farrell's squad will get the series victory they crave.
"I think the Lions will be favourites," he remarked. "Knowing Joe and seeing what he did with Ireland and what he did with New Zealand at the World Cup, he certainly pulled out a few opportunities and a few strike players against Ireland, which hurt them in that quarter-final.
"He's just so diligent in everything he does and he'll have a plan here, and I think he'll want to make sure that he goes out on a high. With Joe's knowledge of Northern Hemisphere rugby and knowing most of the Lions' players inside out he will have done his analysis.
"He will have been working overtime to find strategies and weaknesses and opportunities. He is someone who's going to have a group that will know what they're doing.
"The Lions are still favourites and rightly so, but if Australia get any sort of a platform around the set piece and a physical presence then they'll be very competitive."

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Extra.ie​

an hour ago

• Extra.ie​

Kerry Condon reveals bizarre breakfast choice ahead of romantic scenes with Brad Pitt

Irish actress Kerry Condon has lifted the lid on a surprising behind-the-scenes moment from the set of her highly anticipated F1 film — and it involves a rather unusual breakfast choice. Speaking in a recent interview, the Banshees of Inisherin star revealed the quirky morning routine she adopted while working alongside Hollywood star Brad Pitt. The film sees Pitt star as main protagonist Sonny Hayes, a veteran racing driver staging a thrilling Formula 1 comeback. The film was made under the heavy influence of producer Lewis Hamilton, who is a seven-time F1 world champion. Irish actress Kerry Condon has lifted the lid on a surprising behind-the-scenes moment from the set of her highly anticipated F1 film — and it involves a rather unusual breakfast choice. Pic: Warner Bros/Apple Condon plays Kate, an employee of the F1 team that Hayes rejoins, with the trailer teasing potential intimacy between Pitt and Condon's characters. Discussing the more heated scenes during a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she revealed: 'They scheduled it for half eight on a Thursday morning. 'I was like, 'Ah, come on.' So I had a vodka orange juice for my breakfast that morning. The film sees Pitt star as main protagonist Sonny Hayes, a veteran racing driver staging a thrilling Formula 1 comeback. The film was made under the heavy influence of producer Lewis Hamilton, who is a seven-time F1 world champion. Pic:'We were supposed to be in Vegas on a night out or whatever,' she added, before telling Colbert, 'You're giving it all away!' 'I play the team technical director, who's basically like — if you don't know anything about F1, I'm basically in charge of the car.' Condon previously branded working with Pitt 'a dream come true.' Speaking during a press event at UK race track Goodwood, she joked: 'He's been in the business so long and he's worked with some amazing people, I just wanted to be in his top ten co-stars. That was my aim.' 'Working with Damson Idris was fun, she added. He's like a child, he has so much energy.'

The Irish Sun

an hour ago

• The Irish Sun

Ireland and Leinster star gets engaged to long-time girlfriend in Portugal as fellow aces gush over ‘best news ever'

CELEBRATIONS were in order as an Ireland and Leinster rugby star got engaged to his long-time girlfriend during a sunny holiday to Portugal. Lucy Byrne, partner of Jordan Larmour, revealed the landmark news on Advertisement 2 Jordan Larmour, right, got engaged to lone-time girlfriend Lucy Byrne Credit: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile 2 He popped the question in Portugal Credit: Instagram/lucyybyrne Her message was a simple one denoting the date of their engagement: "19.06.25" The 28-year-old winger dropped down to one knee in sunny surroundings during a family holiday to Portugal . And in the comments, fans and fellow rugby stars alike flocked to offer the congratulations and well wishes. Advertisement Read More on Rugby Another provincial teammate, Josh van der Flier, said: "Congrats guys ❤️" while fellow Ireland international Robyn Flanagan, wife of While Larmour and his family was in celebratory mood, this past weekend was more of a setback variety for some of his Ireland teammates. Advertisement Most read in Rugby Union Dublin in the final preparation for their tour of Australia . And 'Big weekend' - Peter O'Mahony embarking on hectic gardening project as he aims to add '300 plants' On his own performance, Farrell said: 'Obviously not good enough. I always take full responsibility, that's my role. 'It doesn't matter what department, I'm in charge of the job lot so it obviously wasn't good enough and I need to do better. Advertisement 'We made it a tough game, didn't we? 'Obviously the first and appropriate thing to say is congratulations to 'They capitalised very well on the back of quite a few errors from us. Congratulations to them. I'm sure that's a huge moment in Argentinean history. 'But the whole story of the game is that we compounded too many errors. We need to do better than that. Advertisement 'The Lions players, good players coming together, of course we ask a lot of them, and maybe we put too much pressure on the side because it certainly looked like we were a little bit disconnected at times. 'Look, we'll review, and then we need to make sure that we get something positive from that because it's all about how we move forward. 'You can single out one thing but it's not just one thing, it's a compounding of quite a few bits. The amount of balls that we threw blindly, either to the opposition or the floor, is probably a stand-out. 'If you combine that with the kicking game and the aerial battle and what is disappointing is those scraps on the floor from that type of battle, it always seemed to go to Argentina so there's a bit of fight and hunger from them that we can't accept. Advertisement 'Then you combine stuff at the breakdown, the lineout or whatever, and it's too much. 'We're not sugar-coating anything because we need to be honest because if we're not honest how do we gain trust with each other. We have to say it as it is. 'We expected to do better but we're at where we're at and we need to deal with that.'

RTÉ News​

an hour ago

• RTÉ News​

Jack Conan yet to revisit Northampton semi-final loss with Lions team-mates

With 12 Leinster players and four Northampton Saints in this Lions squad, it would be interesting to know when, or if, their Champions Cup semi-final comes up in conversation behind the four walls. Tommy Freeman, Henry Pollock, Fin Smith and Alex Mitchell all returned to Aviva Stadium last night for the first time since their 38-35 win against Leinster in early May, although this time they were on the losing side, as Los Pumas pulled off a 28-24 win against the Lions. Only a couple of those Leinster players were involved last night, with Rónan Kelleher and Tadhg Furlong appearing off the bench, with the rest held back either to rehab injuries or to stay fresh from their URC final exploits last week. Many of them were in UCD on Friday morning as some of the Lions squad held a skills session with a group of 90 school kids, with Jack Conan, Josh van der Flier, Joe McCarthy, Andrew Porter and James Lowe the Leinster players involved. Having missed the training camp in Portugal last week, the Leinster crew joined up with the squad on Monday, along with the Bath and Leicester Tigers players involved in last week's Premiership final. And Conan says the Leinster and Northampton players are yet to revisit that game between them, although he's not ruling it out. "No, no... It's long in the memory at this stage," he said. "I'm sure they were happy enough to get the win over us but nothing has been said. Maybe after a few pints it might come up, but at the moment it's all pleasantries and all that." The number 8 - who captained the province down the final stretch of the season, following an injury to Caelan Doris – admitted the defeat knocked the wind out of Leinster for a couple of weeks, before they fronted up to impressively beat Glasgow Warriors and the Bulls to win the URC final, their first trophy since March 2021. "It was a bit weird in the changing room after, like we didn't know how to win. Lads were a bit awkward or something like that, but it was good craic. "The afterglow went pretty quickly on Monday morning when you had to pack up for the next eight weeks of your life, and get organised and do everything else and get into camp. The anxiety was pretty high, like first day of school going in." While they ended the season with silverware, the nature of their Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Northampton has sparked debate around whether the season was a success or a failure. When the range of opinions varies so much, often the answer is somewhere in the middle. "I think any season where you win something can never be deemed a failure," Conan added. "Obviously we want to go well in both competitions, and I think if it hadn't been for the performance against Northampton, even if we had lost that game, but we performed really well, I don't think people would have said much about it. "They [Northampton] are a quality side, but I think it was just the way we didn't show up that day, and had a bit of a hangover for a few weeks. "Maybe we don't get the result over the last two weeks, if it wasn't for that game. Maybe it was the bit of a kick that we needed. "The problem is when you win most of the time, it papers over cracks a little bit, so we had to have a good hard look at ourselves and it was tough for a lot of lads, for everyone in the building. You get to win a trophy at Croke Park with all your mates, at the end of the day, I would have taken then. "I definitely wouldn't say it was a failure, but there's definitely some more in this club and more in the lads, so hopefully there'll be a few years still ahead of us." Conan played all three Tests on the 2021 tour of South Africa, although that tour was a world away from what he's expecting to see in Australia, with Covid-19 still a major part of everyday life four years ago. And as the squad prepare to depart for Perth this morning, the 32-year-old is eager to soak it all up. "I can't wait to get over there, everyone says it's just a different fanfare, a different level of excitement when you get properly on tour. "But you can even see it walking around town at the moment, people in jerseys, there's a pop-up shop, so many kids outside the Shelbourne. It's special and I'm looking forward to getting a proper run-out at some stage. "Four years ago was still great, I loved it and had a great experience. "In a way, you get to know the lads in such a different way because it was eight weeks of kind of solitary confinement. You have to mix. "You still have to mix now but you're getting out and about in smaller groups whereas four years ago, everyone was just kind of sitting around."