Dan Sheehan has challenged his British and Irish Lions team-mates to match the fervour of the Western Drive underdogs in Saturday’s tour opener in Australia.
Sheehan will captain a Lions crew with solely two starters – Sione Tuipulotu and Tadhg Beirne – who have been within the XV for the defeat by Argentina on Friday.
“I am certain the Drive will probably be 150% of what they often are,” stated the 26-year-old Eire hooker.
“They are going to be flying into it and that bit of additional starvation can produce some highly effective issues.
“They’d have been eyeing this recreation up since they in all probability first stepped into that Western Drive change room. It will imply an terrible lot to them.
“However I do not need them to assume that they are going to be hungrier than us. We’ve got to reveal again our personal mindset.”
Western Drive have been the lowest-ranked Australian facet on this yr’s Tremendous Rugby Pacific, however their head coach Simon Cron stated a lot of their preparation had concerned impressing on the gamers the magnitude of the chance.
“It is a once-in-a-lifetime for lots of those guys,” stated Cron.
“We sat as a gaggle and had a little bit of a yarn about how previous have been you 12 years in the past [when the Lions last toured Australia], how previous will you be 12 years from now.
“That is the significance of this recreation and the particular kind of recreation that it’s. They’re underneath no phantasm round that.”
