One of the British and Irish Lions’ eight born and raised southern hemisphere players has waded into selection controversy, insisting ‘Scotland is home’
Pierre Schoeman at Lions training in Perth on Wednesday
Pierre Schoeman has tackled the criticism surrounding the selection of overseas-born players on the British and Irish Lions tour.
Andy Farrell included eight players born and raised in either South Africa, Australia or New Zealand in his squad of 38, prompting a negative reaction from the likes of recently retired England scrum-half Danny Care and legendary Lions skipper Willie John McBride.
South African pair Schoeman and Duhan van der Merwe, Aussie trio Sione Tuipulotu, Mack Hansen and Finlay Bealham and New Zealanders James Lowe, Bundee Aki and Jamison Gibson-Park all qualified for their home unions through residency or family lineage.
Care claimed that “it doesn’t sit well with him”, with McBride adding how “bothered’ he was about the selection, and Wallabies boss Joe Schmidt further stoked the debate with his description of Aki and Tuipulotu as a “southern hemisphere centre partnership”.
Beaten 24-28 by Argentina in Dublin last Friday, the Lions are now in Perth preparing to take on Western Force this Saturday. Prop Schoeman was nominated for media duties on Wednesday and he went on the attack, insisting that he and the other seven southern hemisphere-born Lions had every right to be selected and wear the famed red jersey.
‘You move to a different country and now that’s your house…’
“If you’re good enough to play for your country, you’re good enough to play for the Lions and you’re selected, then obviously you’re going to do that,” he reckoned. “Playing for the Lions is massive. Scotland is home for us, my wife and myself. I know that’s for the other players as well, like Mack Hansen has made Ireland home.”
He added that there were no issues about him buying into the culture of the Lions. “You embrace that. You fully take that on. It’s like the series Outlander – you move to a different country and now that’s your house. You live there.
“If you work for one of the big four in finance, you get the opportunity, you’re going to go for it. And you can really make that home.
“But this is much different. To represent the British and Irish Lions, you fully buy into that and its culture. You fully submerge into that. Nothing else matters. Not your past, not the future. It’s about the now.
“Yesterday is gone forever, tomorrow might never come, now is the time to live. That’s what we do as Lions. It’s about the now, this tour. This is what really matters.”
