Wallabies icon David Campese slams British and Irish Lions over ‘Australian Islanders’ as Joe Schmidt catches strays
Wallabies icon David Campese in a Test match.
Former Wallabies great David Campese has slammed the number of Southern Hemisphere players in the British and Irish Lions squad, describing them as the ‘British and Irish and Pacific Island Lions’.
Eight of the Lions’ 38-man squad were born in the Southern Hemisphere, including Australian-natives Mack Hansen, Sione Tuipulotu and Finlay Bealham, and this has already become a heavy talking point in the build-up to the series.
Scotland international Pierre Schoeman – who was born in South Africa but qualified on residency grounds – has previously hit back at the claims over the number of foreign players in the squad, saying: “If you’re good enough to play for your country and then you’re good enough to play for the Lions and you’re selected, obviously you’re going to do that,” said Schoeman, who has 42 Scotland caps after qualifying through residency.
“Scotland is home for us, my wife and myself and other players as well. You embrace that, you fully take that on.
“It’s like Outlander. You move to a different country and now that’s your house. You live there. You buy into the culture and now to represent the British and Irish Lions, you fully buy into that, you fully submerge into that.
“Nothing else matters, not your past, not the future, it’s about the now.
David Campese slams Southern Hemisphere Lions
Speaking on TalkSport, Campese described the team as the ‘British and Irish and Pacific Island Lions’.
“It is hard when you’ve got four nations in one team,” he said.
“The British and Irish Lions, sorry, the British and Irish and Pacific Island Lions, I’m going to call them, because you’ve got so many Australian Islanders in there. It is going to be a very interesting game.”
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It wasn’t just the Lions that were on Campese’s hit list, as he also gave a scathing view on the state of rugby union in Australia.
“In Australian rugby, we haven’t got any culture. No one cares, no one knows who we are,” he said. “If you haven’t got culture or history, you haven’t got anything. Unfortunately, that’s where we are.
He added: “We’ve got Joe Schmidt as our coach, who still doesn’t know about our culture and history. He’s now got Les Kiss involved, who’s a rugby league guy and who went out and played and coached in Ireland.
“We’ve got to try and play a style of rugby that people want to watch, but at the moment it’s a very up-and-down defensive game.”
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