2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia

Not to be confused with 2025 England Lions and Lionesses tour of Australia.

2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia
Date	28 June – 2 August 2025
Coach(es)	Andy Farrell
← South Africa 2021

The 2025 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia is an international rugby union tour scheduled to take place in Australia between June and August 2025. The British & Irish Lions, a team selected from players eligible to represent England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, are scheduled to play a three-match test series against the Australia national team, as well as matches against Australia's four Super Rugby franchises and one against an invitational side made up of players from Australia and New Zealand. The Lions were also due to play against the Melbourne Rebels Super Rugby franchise, but they were disbanded in 2024; a replacement match is yet to be announced as of December 2024. Ireland coach Andy Farrell was appointed as the Lions' head coach for the tour in January 2024.

Schedule

The fixtures for the tour were announced on 19 July 2023. ^[1] The tour will culminate with a three-match test series between the British & Irish Lions and the Australia national team, and will also feature matches against Australia's five Super Rugby franchises. The Lions will open the tour with matches against the Western Force, Queensland Reds, New South Wales Waratahs and ACT Brumbies; they were scheduled to face the Melbourne Rebels in the week between the first and second tests, but the Rebels were disbanded at the end of the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season after going into administration earlier in the year. ^[2] A match against a team of players with indigenous Australian and Pacific Islander heritage was proposed in its place in November 2024. ^[3] The week before the first test, they will play a match in Adelaide against an invitational team made up of players from Australia and New Zealand. ^{[1] [4]} A warm-up match against Argentina, to be played at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on 20 June 2025, was announced on 7 December 2023; it will be the Lions' first ever match in Ireland. ^[5]

Date	Home team	Score	Away team	Venue
20 June	British & Irish Lions	v	Argentina	Aviva Stadium, Dublin
28 June	Western Force	v	British & Irish Lions	Perth Stadium, Perth
2 July	Queensland Reds	v	British & Irish Lions	Lang Park, Brisbane
5 July	New South Wales Waratahs	v	British & Irish Lions	Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney
9 July	ACT Brumbies	v	British & Irish Lions	Canberra Stadium, Canberra
12 July	Invitational AU & NZ	v	British & Irish Lions	Adelaide Oval, Adelaide
19 July	Australia	v	British & Irish Lions	Lang Park, Brisbane
22 July	TBA	v	British & Irish Lions	Docklands Stadium, Melbourne
26 July	Australia	v	British & Irish Lions	Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne
2 August	Australia	v	British & Irish Lions	Stadium Australia, Sydney

Venues

Sydney		Melbourne
Sydney Football Stadium	Stadium Australia	Melbourne Cricket Ground	Docklands Stadium
Capacity: 42,500 [6]	Capacity: 83,500 [7]	Capacity: 100,024 [8]	Capacity: 56,347 [9]
Brisbane	Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth Canberra		Adelaide
Lang Park			Adelaide Oval
Capacity: 52,500 [10]			Capacity: 53,500 [11]
Perth		Canberra
Perth Stadium		Canberra Stadium
Capacity: 60,000 [12]		Capacity: 25,000 [13]

Squad

Ireland coach Andy Farrell was appointed as the Lions' head coach for the tour in January 2024. He takes over from Warren Gatland, who had led the team on the previous three tours. Farrell was one of Gatland's assistant coaches on the 2013 and 2017 tours to Australia and New Zealand, respectively. ^{[14] [15]}

Management and staff

Management
Role	Name
Chief executive	Ben Calveley
Chairman	Ieuan Evans
Coaches
Role	Name	Union / Club
Head coach	Andy Farrell	Ireland
Performance staff
Role	Name	Union / Club
General manager	David Nucifora	Scotland
Head of athletic performance	Aled Walters	Ireland
Head of analysis	Vinny Hamond	Ireland
Director of operations	Charlotte Gibbons	England
Head of communications	Jonny Fordham	Premiership Rugby

Broadcasting rights

Territory	Rights holder	Ref.
Australia	Nine [a] (Stan)	[16]
United Kingdom   Republic of Ireland	Sky Sports (Now)	[17] [18]

Notes

1. All Australia matches are televised free-to-air on Nine.

References

1. Jones, Chris (19 July 2023). "British and Irish Lions to play combined New Zealand-Australia XV on 2025 tour". BBC Sport. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
2. "Melbourne Rebels to be dropped from Super Rugby after Rugby Australia reject rescue deal". Sky Sports. 30 May 2024. Retrieved 10 September 2024.
3. "Lions to face indigenous-heritage team in Australia". BBC Sport. 19 November 2024. Retrieved 26 December 2024.
4. "Rugby Australia revives Anzac XV for 2025 British and Irish Lions tour". ABC News . 19 July 2023. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
5. "British and Irish Lions: Dublin to host match with Argentina ahead of 2025 tour to Australia". BBC Sport. 7 December 2023. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
6. "New $828m Sydney stadium to open with NRL, Wallabies and Matildas games". Guardian Australia . 9 June 2022. Archived from the original on 10 June 2022. The venue, which will be home to the Roosters, NSW Waratahs and Sydney FC, has a reduced capacity with all 42,500 seats under shelter as part of the rebuild.
7. "About Accor Stadium". venuesnsw.com. Venues NSW. Originally built to host more than 110,000 spectators, a reconfiguration of the Stadium in 2003 reduced capacity to 83,500 but also gave the Stadium the ability to host five professional sporting codes – Rugby League, Rugby Union, Football, AFL and Cricket.
8. Kowalski, Kuba (31 March 2023). "Australia: The country's largest stadium will get even bigger?". StadiumDB.com . Crucial to the stadium's shape today was a 1988 study that showed the terrible condition of the southern part of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. So, by 1992, a new semicircular stand, the largest of its kind, was built, named the "Great Southern Stand." It was to cost $100 million, but absorbed half as much funding. Thanks to further changes in the early 21st century, the magic capacity – 100,000 – was crossed. Will more renovations take place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and when?
9. "Marvel Stadium". austadiums.com.
10. "Celebrating 20 Years of Suncorp Stadium". populous.com. Populous. 31 May 2023.
11. "Adelaide Oval". afl.com.au. Australian Football League (AFL).
12. "Seating Capacity". optusstadium.com.au. Optus Stadium.
13. "About GIO Stadium Canberra". giostadiumcanberra.com.au. GIO Stadium.
14. "Andy Farrell named British and Irish Lions head coach for 2025 tour to Australia". BBC Sport. 11 January 2024. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
15. "British & Irish Lions Tour: Andy Farrell appoints first backroom staff". ESPN. 28 January 2025. Retrieved 11 February 2025.
16. Robinson, Georgina (23 March 2023). "Nine extends rugby deal as RA plots next chapter". The Sydney Morning Herald . Nine Entertainment. Archived from the original on 29 March 2023.
17. "Sky Sports to exclusively show 2025 British and Irish Lions tour of Australia; three Tests and six warm-ups". Sky Sports . Sky Group. 2 November 2023. Archived from the original on 5 November 2023.
18. McCaskill, Steve (2 November 2023). "Sky Sports secures UK broadcast rights to 2025 Lions tour of Australia". SportsPro . Archived from the original on 12 July 2024.