Cusiter and Blair battle for place on Lions tour

Published on Sunday 26 April 2009 22:40

MIKE Blair and Chris Cusiter may have been handed a late chance to play their way on to the 2009 British and Irish Lions tour.

Tomas O'Leary, the Munster scrum-half, suffered a broken and dislocated ankle in his club's Magners League win over the Scarlets on Friday night, just three days after being selected for the tour. It was confirmed at the weekend that the 25-year-old Ireland cap will not play again for six months.

It was widely believed that Cusiter was next in McGeechan's thinking, having impressed the coach as his midweek No 9 on the 2005 tour, while that tour's Test scrum-half Dwayne Peel is now fully recovered from injury and back in the frame. The problem for them now is game-time.

With Cusiter having opted to leave France for Glasgow this summer, he has been relegated to the bench at Perpignan, and Peel came off the bench in what was Sale's final match of the season on Saturday, leaving McGeechan to state that he will take the next fortnight to make up his mind on a replacement.

Mike Phillips of Wales and Englishman Harry Ellis are already in, with Phillips playing for Cardiff in next weekend's Heineken Cup semi-final and Ellis the following weekend for Leicester against Bath in the Premiership semi-finals.

With this weekend dominated by European competition, only Peter Stringer of Munster and outsider Ben Foden at Northampton are likely contenders in action.

The following weekend could be the crucial one with Blair leading Edinburgh against the Dragons at Murrayfield, Cusiter potentially in action for Perpignan at home to Montauban and Danny Care playing for Harlequins against London Irish in the Guinness Premiership semi-finals.