Russell’s role in earning White first Lions start

Australia and New Zealand Invitational XV v British and Irish Lions

Date: Saturday, 12 July Kick-off: 11:00 BST Venue: Adelaide Oval

For many of the Lions, the pride of being named in the side to face the AUNZ Invitational will come with the kicker that they’re not going to be involved against the Wallabies in the first Test.

Ben White is in that category but, as a scrum-half who wasn’t in the original squad, this first Lions start is a prize he wasn’t expecting and an honour he feared had passed him by.

It’s happening, though, and he spoke on Thursday about part of the reason why it’s happening – his Scotland half-back mate, Finn Russell.

“What have I learned from Finn? The biggest thing is his calmness,” said the Toulon man, summoned from the Scotland camp a couple of weeks ago.

“I used to get very regimented. But his nature makes me feel more relaxed. You think, ‘if somebody with his experience is like that…’ It sort of rubs off on you.

White will know that Jamison Gibson-Park is out on his own as first-choice scrum-half and that Alex Mitchell – who’s about to appear in his sixth Lions game in a row – is going to be hard to catch as back-up.

It doesn’t matter. He knows the job he has to do, which was laid out in crystal clarity in any event by his captain on the night, Tadhg Beirne, when talking about team togetherness being more important than individual pursuit.

“Everybody wants to be in that Test team but the second you try to do that on your own you’re being desperate. And if you’re being desperate you are doing yourself no favours and you’re certainly doing your team-mates no favours,” said the Irishman.

This is a trappy game for the Lions. It took an age for the AUNZ squad to come together, but it’s vastly experienced and littered with giant men and gnarled former Test players. The nous factor is huge.

It’s a loseable fixture. The thought of the Lions going into Test match week on the back of defeat is not such a wild one. This is an important part of the big picture.

Primarily, we’re thinking back to South Africa in 1997 when the Lions concept was less commercial, when players were allowed to be more open and when the talk was not of “learnings” but of “Everest”.

The Lions had just lost to Northern Transvaal and were now playing the Gauteng Lions. It was a battle, but they won.

Coach Jim Telfer said it was the night that re-established momentum, silenced the Bokke and saved the tour. We all know what happened after that.

“It was like a fourth Test match and I don’t think the guys who played realised what they’d done at the time,” recalled Martin Johnson, captain of the tour but not in the squad that night.

“When they came off, the ovation they got from the rest of the squad – I’ll never forget that. That game was massive. That’s one of my favourite moments of being a Lion – and I didn’t even play.”

It’s a mad segue to Saturday in Adelaide, but there’s a point to be made. The side made up of former All Blacks and Wallabies is, on paper, threatening.

The carrot of killing Lions’ momentum and plunging them into self-doubt a week out from the first Test must serve as an enormous incentive, even to all the Kiwi members of the group.

So, it’s the job of the Saturday boys to keep Lions’ spirits high.

“That’s the beauty of professional sport, isn’t it?” says White. “You always have that challenge, you always have that pressure.

“It’s not about going out there and trying to do things differently. It’s about enjoying the occasion, being free and showing what you can do.

“And when you put in a good performance and you’re sat in the changing room, you can look around at your peers and say, ‘that was good fun’.”