No revenge for O’Halloran snub?

The decision of Scotland assistant head coach Jason O’halloran to turn down one of the coaching roles with the Lions clearly still sticks in the craw of their senior officials.

Lions chief executive John Feehan made clear that he understood why Gregor Townsend turned down the chance to join Warren Gatland’s coaching staff for the tour to New Zealand.

Feehan, speaking at the Six Nations launch, said: ‘It will be Gregor’s first tour with Scotland at the same time and that is understandable he wants to go with them.’

On the subject of O’halloran’s decision to turn Gatland down, there was a ‘no comment’, although the look on his face told its own story

To be fair, he has a point. Townsend taking charge of Scotland is a decent reason not to go with the Lions.

O’halloran turning them down because he wanted to take pre-season training with Glasgow Warriors as incoming head coach Dave Rennie would not be released from his contract with the Waikato Chiefs in time isn’t.

Glasgow also have Jonathan humphreys, who is joining them from Scotland too in the summer, available to take pre-season training and is just as capable.

Some english commentators have claimed the SRU have been small-minded towards the Lions by putting pressure on Townsend and O’halloran to turn them down. They didn’t with Townsend and let’s hope they didn’t with O’halloran.

either way, at least Feehan made clear that, despite the lack of Scots on the Lions coaching team, they would not be discriminated against when it comes to selection. here’s hoping.