Sam Warburton’s Lions 23 has turned a lot of heads, the former Welsh number 7 and Lions captain was writing in The Times this week and named the following, leaving the Irish number eight out Caelan Doris completely.

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Blair Kinghorn (Scotland); Tommy Freeman (England), Robbie Henshaw (Ireland), Sione Tuipulotu (Scotland), Duhan van der Merwe (Scotland); Marcus Smith (England), Jamison Gibson-Park (Ireland); Ellis Genge (England), Dan Sheehan (Ireland), Tadhg Furlong (Ireland), George Martin (England), Joe McCarthy (Ireland), Ollie Chessum (England), Jac Morgan (Wales, capt), Ben Earl (England).

Replacements: Andrew Porter (Ireland), Dewi Lake (Wales), Archie Griffin (Wales), Maro Itoje (England), Caelan Doris (Ireland), Alex Mitchell (England), Finn Russell (Scotland), Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (England).

 

It was a tight one at No 8, because I think you’ve got three great eights at the minute. Wainwright played extremely well in the summer. Caelan Doris is obviously Ireland’s captain, but I’ve gone for Ben Earl.

He is simply world-class and because Chessum is at six you do not have to worry about him and Morgan not being particularly tall men…

At full back I’ve thrown a bit of a curveball with the selection of Blair Kinghorn. I like Hugo Keenan but I just think Kinghorn has just gone to another level at Toulouse this year.