Overseas players 'fully' embrace Lions culture

PIERRE Schoeman insists the British and Irish Lions’ overseas-born contingent have earned the right to be in Australia and have fully immersed themselves in the tourists’ culture.

- By DUNCAN BECH

The Scotland prop is one of eight Lions players who were born, raised and educated in South Africa, New Zealand or Australia but qualify for their home unions through residency or family lineage.

Players who hail from the southern hemisphere representing the Lions is nothing new, but the number of them present in Andy Farrell’s squad has caused a stir.

Lions great, Willie John McBride said it “bothered” him, while former England scrum-half Danny Care declared that “it doesn’t sit that well with me”.

But Schoeman insists they are ready to give everything in the quest to complete a series victory over the Wallabies, with Saturday’s fixture against Western Force their first assignment on Australian soil.