Agreed. Aki has been decent on Tour but for the Tests I’d have gone Sione every day of the week.

And to be fair Aki has been decent on tour. But Sione is a better player. And Aki always a duffer of a game up his sleeve. With Farrell/Aki in the center there’s no chance of getting to the edge when your best center is on the wing. The Lions looked tired. It was time to freshen up selection

Aki is having a terrible game here. Scotland captain must be fuming somewhere

Only an Englishman could imagine that Aki and Farrell is a good center pairing.

Come on F1 let’s just start the race. It’s damp. Race please

Oh and the Times podcast was classic English arrogance. The Lions will easily win the series and it won’t be a contest blah blah blah. They genuinely know absolutely nothing about rugby. Absolute zip

Thoughts on that Lions Series win? Well the less Irish it became the better it looked. But Irish coming through with the tries. Farrell at 13 was weird when Aki struggles to do 80. BK has wheels which was sorely missed until that point.

Other media outlets saying the tight hamstring was not a factor in selection. So Aki/Ringrose was the intent. Seems mad to me but what do I know…..

As soon as the bench changes started the Lions have looked progressively weaker

Lack of pace and dynamism in Lions back 3 and off bench not helping here

Sexton seems to have realised finally that Finn is rather good. The apparently very chilled Russell works very very hard in the background. Not flashy, just awfully good

But he also picks Ringrose at 13 despite him not even being available. It’s such poor journalism, so easily seen through that I find it soooooo easy to ignore. But it does make me laugh.

Yeah that’s a fair point. 23 is hard to call and there are 3 tests. My main worry is Schmidt knows the Irelands boys v well and may exploit whatever weaknesses they have

Stephen Jones in the Times is at it already. So dull

Based on that Lions performance I’d start Huw and Sione in the center esp if Ringrose is doubtful. Ben White is in the 23. Duhan will score. Play him. Morgan a starter. Way better than Curry right now. Sorted the breakdown. I like Pollock, too many penalties but a super skill set.

100% We’ll get “scratch side” “little time together” blah blah blah

He soooooo much better than Mitchell. Speed of service electric. JGP will start but White should be in the 23. Way way ahead of Mitchell. But I suspect that’s not what will happen sadly

While this stuff is irritating ultimately it doesn’t matter. Farrell is listening to none of this. Absolutely zilch. He’s never forgotten the way the English media treated him after the 2015 RWC. So views on players and performance are white noise to him

Mental. 100% fromage

French rugby is so…… French. Mental Top14 final

Ben White was always in my Lions selection. Easily better than Mitchell and Williams IMHO

Thoughts on that BIL performance. Pack seems a little weak. Back row blend not apparent. Russell is the 10. HuwP the centres. Kinghorn needed but Daly v good. Irish wings good but worry about pace. 9 a worry with injuries

Well if JGP and Williams have injuries he’s going to need Ben White or George Horne on the plane now

Lions need Ben White and Darge and Darcy Graham on the plane to Aus now. No need to persist any further with Pollock

I blame Sexton. Teaching Finn bad habits. Although to be fair to Finn, Cole was actually late and made actual contact with Finn. Sexton needs to work on on improving Finn’s ground rolling skills and how to clutch ones’s face in apparent agony. 😂

Ruth Itzhaki deserves a lot of credit for the viral hypothesis. I chatted to her over a decade ago about a grant application. She was sharp, thoughtful and very rationale. Didn’t get funded sadly (not my choice) but I’ve always thought she was onto something.

Farrell will ignore all this. The English media went after him as a player and esp as England coach under Lancaster. There is no love lost. Same for Wiggy. There will be Scots who miss out but not because of certain media idiots

It’s weird too as an Legal Permanent Residents can get a Real ID but are not permitted to vote. And there’s nothing on the card which indicates citizenship. So could cause more problems/confusion

A large part of this is because chemists created a repository of protein structures, curated it very carefully, named everything logically and made it open. Thus creating an unbelievably high quality training set.

Trying to be constructive but why are the current set of international referees so poor and what can we do to make them better? More technology and/ or more on the field (NFL style).