Four West Cumbrians have been included in England Community Lions’ first team selection for their opening game on their Australian tour.
Head Coach Paul Couch has named his side for the Lions warm-up game against Western Australia Chairman’s X111 which kicks off at North Beach Sea Eagles RL at 3.30pm tomorrow (8.30am UK time).
Four of the Cumbrian tourists will start – Leon Crellin and Kieran Glen (Egremont), Dominic Wear (Kells) and Ellison Holgate (Wath Brow).
Charlie Tomlinson of Wath Brow is on the bench.
Couch said: “I’m happy with the preparation that we’ve had, happy with how the boys look, the shirt presentation has been done and we’ve named the team.
“I think that the lads are looking forward to the occasion really and looking forward to the warm-up game tomorrow.
“They’ve been ready for it for a couple of weeks if we’re honest. The way we trained at the last training session before we came out and the way we’ve trained the last few days.
“We’ve trained a little bit later to let the lads get over a bit of jet lag and to get some sleep in but I think they’re prepared now they’ve had a nice relaxing day today.
“They went to the driving range and then we’ve watched the Australian test rugby, then had a good meal at the hotel and now we are ready for tomorrow.”
Speaking of the team selection, Couch starts with a potentially exciting halfback pairing.
He said: “We’re going to have a look at Conor Taylor and Dom Wear who are going to start the game at half-back. Danny (Rowse) will come off the bench and work with one of them two later on in the game. But yeah, there’s some good combinations and I’m really looking forward to watching them all play.
“There’s just Jake Dearden that played in the NCL Grand Final a couple of weeks ago that is starting and the rest of the players that featured in that game – Conner MacCallum from Siddal, and Dearden’s Hunslet team mates Ben Shulver, Craig and Jack McShane and Danny Rowse.
“It’s something that I thought about a while ago, and it give me opportunities to look at other players as well. They’re all going to get a fair bit of game time tomorrow, so they all need to show that they are worthy of a test shirt.”
Starting halfback Dom Wear of Kells said, “I think we’ve had a good week.
“Obviously the boys landed here late on Monday night, so there was a couple of good training sessions for the players to get the flight out of our legs.
“We had an intense one Wednesday, really good. Then yesterday, the captain’s run – it went well. I’m delighted I got the nod to start with Connor Taylor at half.”
He continued: “They’ve probably seen some clips of us, maybe watched the NCL Grand Final. We’ve done a couple of video sessions now and know how we want to play and what we want to do and what we want to get to.
“But it’ll all change after that first kick off I imagine on Saturday when some of the big boys come charging at us.”
The team selected is:
22 Kieron Prescott
2 Connor Parkinson
3 Leon Crellin
4 Jake Dearden
5 Lewis Price
6 Dom Wear
20 Conor Taylor
10 Chris Siddons (Captain)
14 Ellison Holgate
17 Andy Philbin
16 Jamie Tracey
21 Jacob Moore
15 Keiran Glen
Interchanges
1 Craig McShane
7 Danny Rowse
8 Matty Stableford
9 Jack McShane
11 Conner MacCallum
12 Ben Shulver
13 Charlie Tomlinson
19 Elliott Cousins
