The British & Irish Lions squad in Australia continues to grow in number with three extra Scotland players set to join the party. Rory Sutherland, Ewan Ashman and Darcy Graham have been called up to provide cover for next week’s First Nations & Pasifika XV fixture which will be played between the first and second Tests against the Wallabies.
All three players are currently in New Zealand where they had been preparing to face Samoa but will now become the latest members of the Lions ever-expanding squad. The Lions management have already had to summon four injury replacements in Owen Farrell, Ben White, Jamie Osborne and Jamie George with prop Thomas Clarkson also added as cover over the weekend.
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The decision increases the number of Lions players in tour to 44 and revives memories of the “Geography Six” controversy in New Zealand in 2017. On that tour half a dozen players were called up primarily because of their geographical proximity rather than, in certain cases, on pure playing merit.
In this case, Sutherland was a Lion in South Africa four years ago where he played in six matches including two of the Tests, Graham was a strong candidate to make the squad in the first place, and Ashman has won the nod over Wales’s Dewi Lake.
Ashman, who plays his club rugby for Edinburgh, has won 28 caps to date and made his Scotland debut in November 2021 against Australia. Graham has played for Scotland for seven years and scored 31 tries in 47 Tests, although he was sent off at the weekend for collecting two yellow cards against Fiji.
No ban has been forthcoming, however, so the winger is free to join up with the Lions. The number of extra bodies being bussed in, nevertheless, again brings into question the logistics of modern day Lions tours with the management once more required to cobble together a team for midweek games sandwiched in between Test matches.