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8th May 2025
04:11pm BST
The 2025 Lions squad has been officially announced by Andy Farrell. It contains a record 15 Irish players, as well as 13 English, 8 Scottish and 2 Welsh players.
The squad announcement has received all kinds of reactions, particularly in relation to Mack Hansen. The Irish wing was included in the final Lions squad, despite being a potential doubt due to suffering an ankle injury in the lead up to today, and not playing his best rugby this season.
Scotland fans in particular are not pleased with Hansen’s selection. Some took to social media to voice their frustrations on the Irishman being picked over fellow wing, Darcy Graham, who has been in flying form for both his country and Edinburgh.
Lions head coach Farrell sent his “commiserations” to those who weren’t selected, but had to play “devils advocate” to get to his final selection.
Farrell said: “Going from 75 players and getting it down to 55 - that's tough enough. It says everything about the process.”
"From 55 to the 38 [players] is extremely difficult."
Props: Andrew Porter (Ireland), Ellis Genge (England), Pierre Schoeman (Scotland), Tadhg Furlong (Ireland), Will Stuart (England), Zander Fagerson (Scotland)
Hooker: Dan Sheehan (Ireland), Rónan Kelleher (Ireland), Luke Cowan-Dickie (England)
Lock: Tadhg Beirne (Ireland), Maro Itoje (England), James Ryan (Ireland), Scott Cummings (Scotland), Joe McCarthy (Ireland), Ollie Chessum (England)
Back row: Jack Conan (Ireland), Ben Earl (England), Henry Pollock (England), Jac Morgan (Wales), Josh van der Flier (Ireland), Tom Curry (England)
Scrum-half: Jamison Gibson-Park (Ireland), Alex Mitchell (England), Tomos Williams (Wales)
Out-half: Finn Russell (Scotland), Fin Smith (England), Marcus Smith (England)
Centre: Garry Ringrose (Ireland), Sione Tuipulotu (Scotland), Huw Jones (Scotland), Bundee Aki (Ireland)
Wing: Duhan van der Merwe (Scotland), James Lowe (Ireland), Mack Hansen (Ireland), Tommy Freeman (England), Elliot Daly (England)
Fullback: Hugo Keenan (Ireland), Blair Kinghorn (Scotland)
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