Garry Ringrose has been lauded for self-reporting concussion symptoms that forced Andy Farrell, the British & Irish Lions head coach, into a last-minute reshuffle for Saturday\u2019s second Test against the Wallabies.<\/p>\n
Ringrose was slated to start at the Melbourne Cricket Ground along with nine other Ireland players but approached Farrell after Thursday\u2019s training session, moments before he was due to announce his team. As a result, Huw Jones receives a reprieve at outside-centre, partnering Bundee Aki in midfield, with Sione Tuipulotu \u2013 who has reported a tight hamstring \u2013 omitted.<\/p>\n
Ringrose missed the first Test after suffering a concussion two weeks ago in the victory over the Brumbies. He made his comeback in Tuesday\u2019s 24-19 win over the First Nations & Pasifika XV<\/a>, coming on after 16 minutes to replace the injured Darcy Graham and proving his fitness to Farrell.<\/p>\n Ringrose\u2019s 11th-hour withdrawal could end up costing him a Lions cap against Australia given he must now be considered a doubt for the third Test in Sydney, but Farrell was full of praise for the 30-year-old\u2019s honesty, which has denied him a Lions Test debut in Melbourne.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s head-related again,\u201d said Farrell. \u201cIt was literally as I was walking off the field, he came to me, and once it\u2019s mentioned, that\u2019s that.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was no incident. He was feeling good, well in advance of Tuesday, and fit and ready to play. No incident through the game at all, nothing yesterday and nothing this morning at all, but with these types of things, players are getting very good at telling the truth of how they feel, so it was a no-brainer to make the change straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n Garry Ringrose made his comeback in Tuesday\u2019s 24-19 win over the First Nations & Pasifika XV<\/a>, coming on after 16 minutes. Photograph: Billy Stickland\/Inpho\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Asked if Ringrose\u2019s admission was \u201can unbelievably selfless act\u201d, Farrell replied: \u201cIt is actually. I thought exactly [that] the minute he mentioned it because it\u2019s tough to do. It\u2019s very easy to keep it to yourself and lie and not be honest and open. It was very big of him and the right thing to do, 100%. For the team as well, not just for Garry.\u201d<\/p>\n Farrell has made three changes, with Ollie Chessum replacing Joe McCarthy in the second row and Andrew Porter coming in for Ellis Genge at loosehead prop. Owen Farrell comes on to the bench and is in line for a seventh Lions cap on his fourth tour. It would have been four changes to the starting XV had Ringrose not withdrawn and the captain, Maro Itoje, was equally taken aback by the Ireland centre\u2019s selflessness.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cFirstly, absolutely gutted for Garry,\u201d Itoje said. \u201cTo play with him and get to know him over the last couple of months has been a real privilege and honour. I\u2019m gutted for him that he\u2019s in this position. But also, it shows the measure of the man to be so selfless. All we ask of all of us is to be selfless and put the team first. When push comes to shove, you see who really does it. Garry is a man who really did it.\u201d<\/p>\n Chessum, who forms an all-England second-row partnership with Itoje, said: \u201cFor him to be selfless like that \u2013 he has to think of himself but also for the team. You know how much everyone in this camp wants to be involved with this game at the weekend and it would have taken absolutely everything from him to pull himself out. That\u2019s just testament to Garry\u2019s character and the type of person that he is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garry Ringrose has been lauded for self-reporting concussion symptoms that forced Andy Farrell, the British & Irish Lions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-19222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}