Click here!<\/a><\/p>\nMATCH PREVIEW<\/p>\n
British and Irish Lions assistant coach Johnny Sexton said on Friday his team was taking no notice of bookmakers who have the visitors overwhelming favourites to win the opening Test against the Wallabies.<\/p>\n
The teams play the first match of the three-Test series at a sold-out Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Saturday, with Australia widely considered the underdogs.<\/p>\n
The last time they met, in Brisbane in 2013, the Lions edged home 23-21 when Australia\u2019s Kurtley Beale slipped while attempting what would have been a match-winning penalty.<\/p>\n
The Wallabies this time have been hit by injuries to star forwards Rob Valetini and Will Skelton, but Sexton stressed the Lions would not be taking them lightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t pay too much attention to bookies\u2019 odds or what people are saying,\u201d Sexton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are just concentrating on tomorrow and trying to put a great performance out there because that\u2019s what is going to be needed — a great performance, not a good performance.\u201d The former Irish fly-half made his Lions debut in Brisbane in 2013, playing all three Tests as the Lions claimed the series 2-1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the atmosphere, the crowds, that\u2019s the thing that always lives with you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, when Kurtley missed the kick the euphoria we felt shows the margins of professional sport, of top-level sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to come down to something small like that and hopefully we come out on the right side.\u201d <\/p>\n
Australia will give 22-year-old flyhalf Tom Lynagh his starting debut on Saturday, but Sexton said he was sure the Australian would cope with the pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not had much experience internationally, a few games off the bench,\u201d Sexton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it seems like he\u2019s got a really steady head on him and is a mature guy for his age.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve looked at a lot of him this week. Once Noah Lolesio was ruled out we knew it would be either him or Ben Donaldson and we\u2019ve done our homework on them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe boys are ready for what he can bring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, flanker Nick Champion de Crespigny will make his Test debut while Will Skelton and Rob Valetini have been ruled out by injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a psycho; loves contact and ready to go,\u201d Fraser McReight said of de Crespigny.<\/p>\n
\u201cLoves the physical nature of the game. I\u2019ve heard all the stories from the Force boys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schmidt backs de Crespigny in Lions Test | 01:26<\/p>\n
While Sexton wasn\u2019t getting ahead of himself, the same can\u2019t be said for some of his players with Ben Earl telling the Guardian this could be \u201cone of the best Lions teams\u201d while Harry Pollock boldly cleared they \u201cwant to come here and be the best Lions team ever\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been talking about that loads and 3-0 is definitely on the table,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
That kind of talk caught the attention of former Wallaby Chris Latham, who labelled the Lions as \u201ccocky\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, and I\u2019m sure for every Aussie, it\u2019s like, \u2018OK, righto. We\u2019ll shut you up\u2019\u201d, Latham told the UK\u2019s Telegraph.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a Queenslander and it\u2019s ingrained in us to be underdogs and be able to pull a win out from nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is perfect for us. I\u2019ve been feeling this now for the last probably three, four weeks while the Lions have been thrashing everyone else and getting cockier and cockier.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything you read, it\u2019s about \u2018how good are we\u2019 and \u2018we\u2019re building\u2019 and \u2018this is so great\u2019. It\u2019s like, \u2018Yeah, you keep talking that, you keep believing that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lions have taken a very early lead over the Wallabies, knocking over a penalty goal inside the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-5618","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\/5618","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=5618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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