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Owen Farrell has been left out the British and Irish Lions squad to tour Australia, with former England teammate Maro Itoje named captain of the travelling party.
Farrell misses out on selection for a fourth tour after being excluded from a 38-player group by Lions head coach Andy Farrell, his father.
The 33-year-old has not played international rugby since the 2023 World Cup, taking a break from England duty last year before agreeing a move to Racing 92 in France and thus making himself ineligible.
And after a season plagued by injuries in which his Paris club have struggled, Farrell has earned inclusion as one of three fly halves alongside Scotland’s Finn Russell and fellow Englishmen Fin and Marcus Smith.
Itoje, meanwhile, emerged as the outstanding candidate to lead the squad after an excellent first Six Nations as England skipper. He follows Bernard Gadney (1936), Bill Beaumont (1980) and Martin Johnson (1997 and 2001) as Englishmen to captain a Lions tour, and will become the first Black man to do so.
The 30-year-old carried cuddly toy “Bil”, the British and Irish Lions mascot, as the youngest player on tour in New Zealand in 2017, and was named player of the series in South Africa in 2021.
Ireland No 8 Caelan Doris, a rival for the captaincy, misses out on the squad after undergoing shoulder surgery. English young gun Henry Pollock is, however, included.
The Lions begin their 10-match itinerary with a meeting with Argentina in Dublin on 20 June, before playing their first match on tour in Perth eight days later.
The three-Test series begins in Brisbane on Saturday 19 July, with the series continuing in Melbourne and concluding in Sydney over the next two Saturdays.
The Wallabies were beaten 2-1 by the quadrennial tourists on their last visit to Australia in 2013. The Lions lost 2-1 to South Africa four years ago in a series played in front of no fans due to Covid restrictions.
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