Australia head coach Joe Schmidt has responded to a warning from the British and Irish Lions that he is contractually obligated to release Test players for the Lions' warm-up games Down Under.
Lions' Chief Executive Ben Calveley said on Monday that Australia must release their Test stars for the Lions' fixtures against Super Rugby sides. "The agreement is very clear, that is our expectation," he said.
"There's some serious plate-spinning at the moment, trying to get ready, the ambition is there will be some going back to the Reds and some going back to the Waratahs," Schmidt told the Sydney Morning Herald in response to the warning.
"But in reality, the Lions have got their squad. Are they going to play their best team every week? That's unlikely, so are we going to play all the same players every week?"
Schmidt had previously allowed Test players Nick Champion de Crespigny, Dylan Pietsch, Tom Robertson, Darcy Swain and Nic White play for Western Force against the Lions, however the big names of Joseph-Aukuso Sua'ali'i and Rob Valetini and other Aussie players for the Reds, Waratahs and Brumbies won't be made available.
"We play Fiji on Sunday and the Waratahs play on a Saturday night. So it's not like you can play Saturday and Sunday night against a team like the Lions. It would be counterproductive," Schmidt said.
"I'm not sure whether Andy [Farrell] was part of that discussion or whether it was just coming from the CEO [Calvely], but I've read the tours agreement and it's having the best intention to have the highest-quality players available and playing.
"It's not as specific as saying every Wallaby from a state or a club has to be available to play every game that the Lions come through on."
Australia's widely reported lack of depth has been seen as a reason for the protection of some of their big names as well as the fact that their own warm-up fixture against Fiji in New South Wales on July 6, is the day after the Lions take on the Waratahs.
The Lions lost 28-24 to Argentina at a sold out Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Friday in their first warm-up fixture.
- Tom Hamilton from Dublin: Time will tell if Lions loss was a blip or an omen
- James Regan: Three things we learned from Lions opener
- British and Irish Lions vs. Argentina: As it happened
- Full fixture list for Lions tour of Australia
- Everything you need to know about summer Lions tour
- The full 38-man Lions squad