Farrell withdraws from Lions position

IRELAND head coach Andy Farrell will not feature in Warren Gatland’s backroom team for the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa this summer.

Scotland’s Steve Tandy has emerged as the frontrunner for the defence coach vacancy after Gatland was forced into a major reshuffle of his coaching team.

The Lions head coach’s plans were thrown into disarray last week as three members of his original coaching ticket withdrew from the tour to South Africa.

Scotland defence coach Tandy is in line to replace Farrell (above), who pulled out to focus on his country’s summer tour to the South Pacific. Robin McBryde, who worked under Gatland when he was in charge of Wales, is the favourite to be named forwards coach.

Tandy also worked closely with Gatland during his time as Ospreys head coach. The Welshman subsequently spent two years as defence coach for the Waratahs in Super Rugby before taking up a similar role with Scotland in 2019.

In the 2020 Six Nations, Scotland conceded the fewest points and in this year’s tournament they were second only to Ireland.

With Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend also on board as Lions attack coach, Tandy’s expected appointment may help the chances of Scottish hopefuls for the 36-man squad, which will be named next month.

Steve Borthwick, the Leicester head coach, also turned down the role as forwards coach after learning of the Lions schedule. Borthwick stood to miss the first three weeks of the Tigers’ pre-season and potentially even more if forced to quarantine. Another Englishman, Graham Rowntree, who was expected to reprise his role as scrum coach, pulled out for family reasons after it was confirmed that the tour would go ahead.

At such late notice, Gatland is likely to turn to another tried-and-trusted option in McBryde, who was Wales forwards coach for 11 years under Gatland and is now assistant coach with Leinster. Ireland defence coach Simon Easterby represents an alternative choice.

Neil Jenkins is still in line to assume his role as kicking coach. Even with his close working relationships with the trio, the late shake-up is far from ideal from Gatland’s perspective.