O'Mahony to captain Lions in 1st test against New Zealand

A couple of really interesting selections on both sides. As brilliant as SBW's offloads usually are, they do also get intercepted from time to time and against Lions rush defence this could be a pbm. Reckon ALB is a better, more complete player. Rieko Ioane vs Julian Savea is a tough one too. Would have started Ardie Savea at 6/7.

As for the Lions, AWJ over Itoje is a massive surprise especially against running/skilled locks like Retallick and Whitelock. Glad Warburton's been benched. BIL are now the English, Welsh & Irish lions.

I'd say it's gonna be a tight one, Naholo not even on the bus to the ground..weather looking ok..smothering defence will be an issue, I'm sure the Blackness will sort it out in a hurry, if not, I'll be throwing my speights at the TV :)

The loose forward trio of Read, Kaino and Sam Cane is pretty formidable. 

They sure are RM, am just a massive fan of Ardie's high tempo game/high energy and incredible work-rate (plus welly's my fav nz city/town).

Will be interesting to see how Barrett copes with the pressure (reckon SOB will target him like good 7 do).

And you didn't bite at my 'kiwi coach' comment. Disappointed.

Haha had a good chuckle though!

Rieko Ioane is the right choice on the wing for this game, but given his father Eddie spent so long playing in Japan, I'm not sure why he gave his son a girl's name.

Depending on whether, if the All Blacks can get the ball wide, this will be no contest. I'm sure Barrett and co will have a counter to the rush defence. Late in the Chiefs game, the Chiefs started doing a lot of angled running, and this caused issues. I think too Barrett may pull out the kick pass as well.