As David Attenborough releases his feature- length film Oceans, the broadcaster left the producers as well as himself in tears with his most important message yet
Sir David Attenborough has delivered a powerful message in his latest film(Image: DAILY MIRROR)
As Sir David Attenborough turns 99, the wildlife legend has shared many messages over the years – but his recent documentary has the “most important” yet.
Oceans With David Attenborough will be released in cinemas this week to mark his 99th birthday – as it mirrors his life, along with 100 years of discovery of the seas.
The broadcaster urged people to look after the seas to help save our planet, as his final words on saving the world’s oceans brought him to tears, and he hopes his film could help protect the planet from climate change.
Oceans took two years to film, as it explores coral reefs, kelp forests and the vast oceans, as Sir David shares why having healthy oceans is so important in keeping the planet safe and stable.
READ MORE: King Charles joins Sir David Attenborough at Ocean premiere to deliver important message
Sir David Attenborough is celebrating his 99th birthday and has a poignant message (Image: PA)
Toby Nowlan, one of Ocean’s directors, told Sky News that the film was “very different” to any of his previous work.
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“Nothing has come close to how important this film is. I remember sitting on a very cold beach off Sussex, filming with him, and we were doing the opening and closing words for the film. It was such a poignant moment. They were the most powerful words I’ve ever heard him say,” he said.
In the film, Sir David shares a poignant message about how, after almost 100 years on Earth, he believes the planet’s oceans are the most important area to protect.
Nowlan shared: “And if we save the ocean, we save our world. It really hit me and, yeah, I welled up. There’s been a lot of doom and gloom over the last few years – we want the take home to be: if we save our ocean, we can make a huge difference for our climate, for our fisheries, for conservation, for food security.”
The director said that this message is the “biggest” yet from Attenborough, and it’s also ultimately one of hope, too. The film is one he believes could play a role in saving biodiversity and protecting the planet from climate change.
READ MORE: Sir David Attenborough’s diet for a long life as broadcaster set to turn 99 this week
Sir David takes viewers back to his first scuba dive in 1957 on the Great Barrier Reef. He said: “I was so taken aback by the spectacle before me I forgot – momentarily – to breathe.”
Devastatingly, there has been a catastrophic decline in life with the broadcasting veteran noting: “We are almost out of time.” Sir David even revealed the state of the ocean almost made him lose hope for future life on our planet.
However, what has kept him from his despair has been the “most remarkable discovery of all” that the ocean can “recover faster than we had ever imagined”.
The key message in his film is that all is not lost, as he hopes it will spur leaders to take action. “The ocean can bounce back to life,” Sir David said. “If left alone it may not just recover but thrive beyond anything anyone alive has ever seen.”
Do you have a story to share? Email niamh.kirk@reachplc.com
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“Our phones, and text messages, have been ringing off the hook”, says owner Michele Kang with a smile.
It is 72 hours on from her London City Lionesses winning promotion to the Women’s Super League.
And it is easy to see why players, who 18 months ago would have baulked at the idea of joining this club, are now desperate to be a part of its Hollywood-style story.
Kang only bought the Lionesses in December 2023, when they were on the brink of liquidation. But thanks to her huge financial investment and long-term vision, she has turned this once failing team into hot property.
“I jump in before anyone can say this is a good thing or in most cases they think I’m crazy,” she tells BBC Sport. “This was not the first time I’ve been called crazy. But I absolutely saw the potential and with a little focus, I have never looked back”.
London City secured the point they needed for the Championship title with an enthralling 2-2 draw against title rivals Birmingham at St Andrew’s in front of a 9,000-strong crowd.
But if you were watching the match on television, you would have been forgiven for asking who was the glamorous woman at the heart of the team’s celebrations.
Immaculately dressed in a cream trench coat and now trademark dark sunglasses, the 65-year-old Kang took centre stage at the trophy presentation, lifting it with her captain Kosovare Asllani as streamers and fizz popped around them.
Most owners usually celebrate such achievements from the directors’ box. Not Kang, though.
Her approach to that moment matches her approach to how she does everything. She does it her way.
“Here we are, we made it. It just tells you that with proper investment and anything is possible,” said Kang.
London City are just one part of what is rapidly becoming a global women’s football empire for the wealthy American businesswoman, with Kang also owning eight-time Women’s Champions League winners Lyon and Washington Spirit in the United States.
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While winning the Championship is an outstanding achievement, the WSL will be a huge step up for her side.
Kang insists they are not aiming to simply survive in the top flight, but to thrive.
And that is why at 9am, the morning after the promotion celebrations, her team – including manager Jocelyn Prêcheur, who she lured from Paris St-Germain and sporting director Markel Zubizarreta, who was poached from the Spanish FA – were already planning for life in the top tier.
“Our vision from day one, when we started out this journey a year ago, was building at least a mid-tier WSL team,” Kang adds. “We’ve seen a lot of men’s and women’s teams get promoted and the next year they get relegated.
“So we’ve been trying to build a team that when we got up, we can stay there and be very competitive. We recruited players that way and staffing that way.”
When asked how many players they’re aiming to recruit this summer, Kang jokes those decisions are “above my pay grade”.
“I do sometimes participate in convincing and persuading players to join us, but ultimately who we recruit is down to the sporting director and our manager’s job,” she says. “I have full confidence in them.”
That said, no-one would be surprised to see a host of international stars arriving at the club’s training base in Aylesford, Kent, before the new season starts in September.
Despite being in the Championship, Kang enticed Sweden internationals Asllani and Sofia Jakobsson, Japanese World Cup champion Saki Kumagai, and ex-Barcelona midfielder Maria Perez to join London City.
For Asllani, who had spells at PSG, Manchester City and Real Madrid in her career, playing under a female owner was one of the huge draws.
“For the first time, I was like OK we have a woman investing, not just talking, actually giving us all the resources we need to succeed,” said the 35-year-old, who won the WSL with Manchester City in 2016.
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But it is not just on the pitch where Kang has spent her money as she sees the bigger picture of what a successful team needs.
At the training ground at Cobdown Park, seven Fifa-compliant pitches are set to be ready for the players this summer. There are ambitious plans to build a performance campus, although planning permission for the proposed buildings and facilities has not yet been secured.
Talking of the proposals, Kang adds: “It’s going to be the state-of-the-art training centre, better than actually many of the men’s Premier League training centres.”
The club plays its matches at Hayes Lane, which they groundshare with League Two men’s side Bromley, but Kang says they are exploring building a purpose-built stadium for her side.
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Born in Seoul, South Korea, Kang moved to the United States to study. She then made her money in healthcare and IT, with Forbes magazine placing her wealth at $1.2bn (£900m).
Her love affair with women’s football has been a whirlwind. Having been invited to her first ever match at Washington Spirit in 2021, Kang instantly fell in love with the sport.
“It was cold April day, and I still remember vividly. I was mesmerised, like really totally converted,” she says.
“There’s something about being just at a stadium environment with the players, just the competitive spirit going back and forth, it is just absolutely the best. And I think that’s really eventually what got me.”
By 2022 Kang was the majority owner of the Spirit. A year later she added London City Lionesses to her portfolio before buying Lyon in 2024.
“It is a lot of fun,” she admits. “I don’t have my own children, but all of a sudden I have three teams and players across the Atlantic Ocean. I try to actually be at the games and support my players. That’s really, ultimately, the fun part.”
It may be fun, but her clubs are not charities, but businesses.
“I saw an incredible potential of where it was versus where it could be,” says Kang. “The gap I thought was tremendous and I was really surprised no-one saw that, let alone investing in realising that gap.”
So how do the capital’s Lionesses now compete in a division and create a fanbase that already has four established London clubs in Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and West Ham?
“[Washington] Spirit will be the first one to break even because they are two, three years ahead and we invested heavily in fan development and corporate partnership,” reveals Kang.
“The models and the best practice are being copied both at Lyon and London City, and the Spirit are also learning from what Lyon have done. So we’re all learning from each other.
“At London City, so far our focus has been on the product, the sporting side, but we will heavily, heavily invest in fan development and building some significant fandom and engagement.
Kang’s three clubs come under the umbrella of her Kynisca Sports International venture. But it does not stop at just investing in women’s football.
In August 2024, Kynisca announced it was setting up a $50m (£39.2) global investment fund to help improve the health and performance of elite female athletes.
It was something Kang said would be “a new era for female athletic potential” and “drive lasting change”.
One of the first recipients was the US rugby 7’s team who were awarded $4m (£2.9m) after winning bronze at the Paris Olympics – a donation star player Ilona Maher described as “really impactful”.
“She saw our value, which we already knew we had, but this was someone truly seeing it and investing in it and this is setting us up for hopefully a win in LA 2028,” said Maher, 28.
Kang has also pledged a $30m (£23.6m) donation to US Soccer over the next five years, with the aim of transforming women and girl’s football in America.
“She puts her money where her mouth is,” former Chelsea and current USWNT manager Emma Hayes tells BBC Sport.
“Let me be clear about this, she’s an astute businesswoman. She knows that women’s sport is one of the areas of sport that has the opportunity to explode.”
United States President Donald Trump is set to announce a trade deal with the United Kingdom on Thursday, US media have reported, in what would be the first such agreement since he rolled out his sweeping tariffs.
The reports come after Trump on Wednesday teased the announcement of a deal with an unnamed country on social media.
“Big News Conference tomorrow morning at 10: 00 A. M., The Oval Office, concerning a MAJOR TRADE DEAL WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF A BIG, AND HIGHLY RESPECTED, COUNTRY”, Trump said in a post on his , Truth Social platform. “THE FIRST OF MANY!! “!
The New York Times, which reported the news along with The Wall Street Journal, Politico and CNN, said that it was not clear whether the agreement had been finalised.
Investors have been anxiously waiting for signs of an easing of Trump’s trade war amid fears that prolonged uncertainty over tariffs could inflict serious damage to the global economy.
The International Monetary Fund last month lowered its global growth forecast for 2025 from 3.3 percent to 2.8 percent amid Trump’s trade salvoes.
On Tuesday, US and Chinese officials confirmed that they would hold their first round of trade talks in Switzerland this weekend, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the de facto mutual trade embargo between the world’s two largest economies.
The UK was spared from Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs announced against dozens of countries last month, but its exports have been subject to a 10 percent “baseline” duty since April 9.
The US and UK did 314.6 billion pounds ($419bn) worth of trade in goods and services in 2024, an increase of 3.9 percent from the previous year, according to the UK’s Department for Business and Trade.
Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – As the camera panned around a home blown up by the mortar fire in Poonch, an embattled hill city perched on the disputed border between India and Pakistan, a disembodied female voice cried out.
“This is a calamity.”
The video, shared with Al Jazeera by locals in Poonch, revealed a collapsed staircase, large craters in the walls, and a courtyard cluttered with rubble and clothes, and painted in blood.
“Everything I built is in ruins,” the voice exclaimed, loaded with anguish.
At least 11 people have been killed in Poonch district from Pakistani firing into Indian-administered Kashmir since early May 7, in retaliation for Indian missile strikes that hit multiple sites across Pakistan’s Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The Indian strikes – themselves a response to a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22 – mark the most extensive attack on Pakistani soil since their 1971 war that ended with the eastern wing of Pakistan lopped off, resulting in the creation of Bangladesh.
Yet, as the nuclear-armed neighbours stand on the edge of a potential military conflict, many Kashmiris say they are facing the brunt of their tensions. Pakistan’s bombardment of Indian-administered Kashmir on Wednesday night was, according to locals and experts, the most intense shelling that villages and towns in the region have seen in more than 40 years.
“This was a night of terror,” Rameez Choudhary, a resident of Poonch, told Al Jazeera.
The dead, officials told Al Jazeera, included two siblings who were crushed to death after an exploding shell dropped on their house; two local store-owners who were hit by the raining munitions; a seven-year-old child; a teenage boy; a 35-year-old homemaker; and four other men.
The worst-hit villages in Poonch district were Shahpur, Mankote and Krishna Ghati, while shelling also intensified in Rajouri district’s Laam, Manjakote, and Gambhir Brahmana areas as residents fled to safety.
A residential house is pictured after it was damaged by cross-border shelling in Salamabad in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Baramulla district, May 7, 2025 [Reuters]
‘This war has been forced upon us’
The border skirmishes have followed the deadly attack at the tourist resort town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir two weeks ago, in which 26 people, mostly Indian visitors holidaying in the disputed region, were killed.
During the wee hours on Wednesday, Indian military warplanes arced across the skyline and fired missiles and other munitions into neighbouring Pakistan. Indian authorities said they targeted at least nine locations inside Pakistan.
India charges Pakistan with supporting the armed group that attacked Indian tourists. Pakistan, however, has denied the accusation. India claims its missiles hit “terror base camps”, but Pakistan says the strikes killed 31 people, all of whom were “innocent civilians”.
The scale and spread of the current military tensions – India struck four cities separated by hundreds of kilometres in Pakistan’s Punjab province, in addition to sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir – make them even graver, in some ways, than the last war between the neighbours in 1999, say some experts.
Back then, servicemen from the Pakistani army had disguised themselves as rebel fighters and taken up positions in the snow-covered, craggy mountains of Kargil, territory under de facto Indian control, leading to a conflict. Hundreds of soldiers died on each side, but the battles were – unlike this week – contained to Kargil.
“This war has been forced upon us. The [Pahalgam] attack was aimed at provoking a situation in which we have no option but to strike back,” said Tara Kartha, director at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), a New Delhi-based think tank, and a former official at India’s National Security Council Secretariat.
To be sure, the countries came close to war in 2019 in the aftermath of the deadly attack in Pulwama town in South Kashmir when a suicide bomber blew up an Indian paramilitary motorcade, killing 40 Indian servicemen. Indian fighter jets fired missiles that struck Balakot in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
But according to Kartha, the current crisis is different.
“Both sides carefully managed 2019. Everything was kept confined to a certain limit. But this time, it has been brutal,” she said, while arguing that “India has been very mature”. Pakistan’s military and civilian government have, however, accused India of fanning the flames of war and escalating tensions.
Caught on the front lines of their confrontation are Kashmiris. On Wednesday, three different regions in Indian-administered Kashmir were struck by Pakistani shelling.
“Initially, we thought it was thunder. The skies rumbled at 1am,” Altaf Amin, a 22-year-old resident of Chandak village in Poonch, told Al Jazeera.
Villagers sit in a tractor trolley as they move to safer places as authorities evacuate residents living near the border with Pakistan, in Suchetgarh, in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, May 7, 2025. Many locals say the government was too slow to start evacuations [Reuters]
‘We don’t want war’
Poonch is just 10km (six miles) from the Line of Control (LoC), the contested border that separates the Indian- and Pakistan-controlled territories in Kashmir. “The shelling has continued on and off since yesterday. But now, it has stopped,” said Amin.
Social media was quickly flooded with videos showing the severity of the human toll in the border shelling. A clip whose veracity was authenticated by Al Jazeera shows the bloodied body of a teenage boy being carried into a van in Poonch. One of his arms had been blown apart. The different segments in the same clip showed a lifeless body of a child, his head ripped open by a shell.
Amid it all, one refrain emerged loud and clear: “We don’t want war,” said Amin.
Yet, there is also anger on the ground against local authorities.
“People in Poonch are angry because there was no attempt to get them evacuated,” Zafar Choudhary, a political analyst and veteran journalist based in the Jammu region, told Al Jazeera.
Choudhary said that the strikes from the Pakistani side should have been anticipated by the Indian government, and people should have been evacuated to avoid the casualties.
“But none of that happened, which has left people infuriated. There’s a feeling that whenever the trouble between the two warring nations has erupted in the past, it is the people of these hill regions who have borne its brunt,” he said.
Silent guns roar again
The LoC traverses a 740km (459-mile) circuitous route through the mountains, forested ridges, alpine lakes and rivers of the disputed Kashmir region. The line came into being in 1949 after the newly independent India and Pakistan fought their first war over Kashmir, which was then one of the 565 princely states ruled indirectly by colonial Britain.
As both countries rallied their militaries to claim the picturesque region, they eventually settled for a stalemate that forced them to recognise each other’s spheres of influence. The ceasefire line was given recognition by the United Nations, which tried to mediate a referendum in Kashmir so that its people could choose their future.
The vote never happened, and both nations continued to spar occasionally along the disputed border. After the 1971 war that Pakistan lost to India, the ceasefire line was renamed as the LoC. In 2003, after a more than decade-long uprising in Kashmir began to subside, and both countries initiated a peace process to ease hostilities, India took advantage of the truce period to fence off its side of LoC with spools of concertina wire.
The two countries agreed to a ceasefire deal that they renewed in 2021.
Four years later, that agreement effectively lies in tatters.
Broken glass pieces are seen on a carpet inside a residential house after it was partially damaged by cross-border shelling in Salamabad in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Baramulla district, May 7, 2025 [Reuters]
‘This shelling is unprecedented’
Amin, the villager in Chandak, said that although artillery duels have been common in the border area, the guns had fallen relatively silent since both countries reaffirmed the 2003 ceasefire deal four years ago. “We are familiar with cross-border shelling. But this shelling is unprecedented.”
Another resident from Poonch, which is where most damage has taken place, said that people there have now started following a series of war protocols announced by the government, including building makeshift bunkers.
Residents said many schools in Chandak have been converted into relief centres, with provisions of food and other essentials.
Nearly 260km (162 miles) away from Poonch district, the residents of Salamabad Uri, a border village in Baramulla district, northern Kashmir, have fled their homes, too.
“Last night, the shelling was so intense that two houses were burned down and many people were wounded in the fire from across the border,” Mushtaq Ahmad, 40, a cab driver from the village, said. Ahmad has now moved to the town of Uri.
Salamabad, which is ringed by a pine-covered massif that juts out into Pakistan, has been devastated by near-continuous shelling. Powerful blasts have ripped away corrugated iron roofs from homes, exposing them to harsh sunlight. The inferno caused by the shelling has blazed through neighbourhoods, leaving behind smouldering debris.
“We fear the worst,” said Ahmad, adding that his two daughters, aged 9 and 11, are frightened.
“They are asking why it happened? Would we be killed?” Ahmad says, adding that the cross-border shelling started at 2am on Wednesday, and left two minors – a 13-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy – wounded.
Ghulam Muhammad Chopan, an 80-year-old resident, said that he felt too old to leave his home, but that there was no other option.
“At this age, I had to leave my house. At night, the firing was so intense that by dawn, the village was empty. Everyone fled,” he said.
In Wuyan town in Pampore, a highland area surrounded by a maze of escarpments where the prized Kashmiri saffron grows, townspeople said they were jolted out of their sleep at 1:30am after they heard a loud booming sound.
“A fireball exploded with a flash,” said Gulzar Ahmad, a resident. “I could see two aircraft. One of them returned promptly. But the other one that exploded, its wreckage had fallen into a school playground. Later, it started emitting acrid smoke that drew a large crowd.”
Pakistan claims it shot down five Indian fighter jets on Wednesday morning. While multiple independent reports suggest that at least three planes were indeed shot down, India is yet to confirm any such losses.
As uncertainty lingers over the escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan, locals in Indian-administered Kashmir are fearful and uncertain about their future.
Residents have started hoarding food, fuel and other essential items, anxious and desperate to survive violence they never invited.
The 1,800-seater Indigo, a side room to London’s O2 Arena, usually hosts concerts, comedy and podcast shows. On Friday, finalists from Indian Idol will play there. On Saturday, a George Michael tribute act has the floor.
On Thursday, it will be decked out with giant screens and hundreds of fans. The aim is to create something akin to the NFL draft or a Uefa draw, with tension, intrigue, a touch of speechifying and some social media moments.
Whatever the warm-up though, the headline act is the same as ever, unchanged for more than a century: a roll-call of the best rugby union players from Britain and Ireland.
The captain apart, no-one knows at this stage who will emerge from the coaches’ conclave. There are no tip-offs or advance warnings. The Lions’ class of 2025, who will play a three-Test series away to Australia this summer, hear their fate along with the rest of us.
We don’t even know how many Lions there will be either. Somewhere between 37 and 41 is the best guess.
That void of solid information is filled with speculation and conjecture: how will the team dynamics mesh, which players can deputise where, who is a coach’s favourite, styles, systems, conditions, and ultimately who is in and out?
Soon enough, there will be clarity.
Itoje set to be the Lion king
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Maro Itoje was set to be confirmed as the Lions captain on Thursday.
Ireland number eight Caelan Doris had been the other contender, but picked up a shoulder injury in Leinster’s Champions Cup semi-final defeat by Northampton this weekend, putting his touring hopes in danger.
Itoje may well have earned the accolade ahead of Doris regardless, but now the 30-year-old, who had not been either his club or country’s regular skipper until the start of this season, will be completing a captaincy clean sweep on his third Lions tour.
“I would agree with it going to Maro,” former England and British and Irish Lions scrum-half Matt Dawson told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“There are a couple of absolute fundamentals with Lions tour captains – first and foremost they have to be in the team and for me he is, without a shadow of a doubt.
“Secondly, he has to be held in that regard, not just by the coaches, but also by his team-mates as well. The players have to look at their captain and think ‘this guy is the man’.
“Thirdly, for Maro specifically, he has blossomed beautifully this season for England.
“He has gone from being a player who was a certainty to be in the team, but was a bit short of the form of his early 20s and a little bit too ill disciplined, to being right in the groove.
Russell puzzle at 10
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Finn Russell is the man in possession of the British and Irish Lions number 10 jersey.
Four years ago, he was ushered into the fray early in the deciding third Test against the Springboks and, although the tourists lost, Russell’s dexterity and daring stood out.
However, after a modest Six Nations campaign with Scotland and the appointment of Russell sceptic Johnny Sexton as one of the Lions coaches, doubt has been cast over whether the 30-year-old could even make the squad.
Former Ireland hooker and Scarlets coach Bernard Jackman believes Russell should be straight into the team.
“For me, Russell is the starting 10,” he told Scrum V.
“I think the stuff around Johnny joining the coaching staff – I think that will be done.
“The area Andy Farrell is most comfortable in coaching is attack.
“When you think of Ireland’s attack going into the last Rugby World Cup in 2023, it was so patterned and intricate. Someone with Russell’s instinct, with his passing, running and kicking game, could be unbelievably strong in that.
“I would be shocked if he wasn’t on the plane. I think it is the job of the coaches to set the team up to bring the best out of him because that would bring the best out of everybody else.”
Horgan agrees, adding that Russell’s Lions credentials have been proven.
“Given Scotland have won just one of their past 16 meetings against his Ireland team, it will be hard for Andy Farrell to eliminate some of the doubts he may have about some of their players,” he told BBC 5 Live.
“But, I don’t think that counts for Finn. If there was ever any doubts about Finn, they were blown out of the water by his performances on the tour in 2021.
Prendergast stock sinks in semi shock
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Twenty-nine minutes into Northampton’s shock win against Leinster in the Champions Cup semi-final on Saturday, Henry Pollock took a short ball off Alex Mitchell, punched a hole and pinned back his ears.
The ease with which he rounded Leinster fly-half Sam Prendergast to scorch in for a try set tongues wagging among those on the lookout for Lions.
“That must have been the worst performance Prendergast has had this season,” said 2009 British and Irish Lions winger Ugo Monye on Rugby Union Weekly.
“You can forgive missed kicks at goal, but there was a lack of control.
“He looked like he was the fly-half playing away, he couldn’t impose himself on the game.
“No-one missed more tackles in the Six Nations this year and, as well as being ruined by Henry Pollock, he looked non-committal in defence, making tap tackles.
“He will become such a focus for an attack.”
Former Wales and Lions wing Alex Cuthbert agreed, telling 5 Live: “I don’t think you can take Sam, as great as his attacking ability is at the line.
“His defence is a real liability and Australia coach Joe Schmidt will be clued into that.
“His tackle completion is way, way too low to be chosen.
“By contrast, I think Northampton fly-half Fin Smith played his way on to the plane.
Pollock presses case
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Pollock began this season with just one Premiership appearance to his name. His precipitous climb towards the top shows no sign of stopping though.
The 20-year-old has scored more tries and beaten more defenders than any other forward in the Champions Cup this season. He has made more tackles and secured more turnovers than any other player full stop.
“Previously I thought maybe the Lions had come too soon for him,” said former England scrum-half Danny Care on Rugby Union Weekly.
“But watching that win over Leinster, how can you not take him?
“He looked better, in every aspect, than one of the best Ireland back rows ever.
“He is an 80-minute player. To be at that level mentally and physically, in a Test match level environment is superb.
“I like everything this kid is about.
“I’m not sure if he would start, but how good would he be for competition on that tour?
“Lob him into a midweek team and if you picked him for the Test side, he wouldn’t look out of place.”
Horgan takes the same view, saying: “Farrell can’t not pick him. Pollock was phenomenal at the weekend. It was as good a performance as I have seen in a long time.
Williams and White face off at scrum-half
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Tomos Williams’ livewire performances for Gloucester and Wales have put him in contention for a scrum-half spot, although Scotland’s Ben White – who has a ready-made understanding with Russell – could trump him in the expected race to join Ireland’s Jamison Gibson-Park and England’s Alex Mitchell in the squad.
“My instinct says that Ben White would better fit the way that Andy Farrell would want to play and how the Lions could play,” said Dawson.
“And that connection with Finn Russell could be quite handy.
“However, it is a valid point that the Lions organisers will want to have a healthy Wales contingent and that might count against White. That factor might edge a toss-of-a-coin decision.”
Cuthbert said: “I would be very surprised if Tomos is not on that plane, given both his form and the type of bloke he would be in that environment.
Smith falling between two stools?
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Marcus Smith was called up for the last British and Lions tour while playing a summer international for England against Canada.
While halfway down Allianz Stadium’s tunnel, he was told by England support staff that he would be boarding a plane to South Africa, as well as a bus back to south London.
The 26-year-old seemed in prime position for a fly-half slot this time around after some virtuoso displays for England in the second half of 2024.
However, the emergence of namesake Fin and a positional shuffle to full-back during the Six Nations has made predicting Smith’s inclusion prospects for 2025 a lot harder.
Danny Care, who plays with Smith at Harlequins, backs him.
“Scotland full-back Blair Kinghorn is likely to arrive late on the tour from Toulouse so it is a massive string to Marcus Smith’s bow being able to play 15,” Care said.
“If you have two big movers on the wings, be it James Lowe, Tommy Freeman or Duhan van der Merwe, you need someone who can link and create space for them.
“Marcus Smith is the best one-on-one attacker coming from the back. He has been for two or three years.
“Added to which I don’t think Andy Farrell will forget how well he played at 10 in the autumn. Some players have credit in the bank.”
Smith may still find that positional specialists are preferred to his versatility.
“For all his brilliance as a player, I don’t think Marcus Smith is in the top three for fly-halves who get the most out of their backline,” said Horgan.
“Finn Russell, Fin Smith and Sam Prendergast all get backlines motoring better and I don’t think you can have Marcus Smith as a starting full-back.
On Thursday, May 8, 2018, this is the current situation:
Fighting
At midnight, Moscow time (21:00 GMT, Wednesday), Russia declared a three-day ceasefire to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of Nazi Germany. Ucraina has proposed a 30-day ceasefire instead of a one-year ceasefire, but it has not agreed to it.
There were no other reports of attacks on Ukrainian cities on early Thursday, aside from the statement from the Ukrainian air force about the launch of guided bombs by Russia.
diplomacy and politics
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, stated in his monthly address on Wednesday that he supported the demand to observe a 30-day ceasefire. This proposal, which could give diplomacy a chance, is not beingwithdrawn, Zelenskyy said.
US Vice President JD Vance claimed in an interview at the Munich Security Conference that Russia was “asking for too much” in its initial peace offer.
