British & Irish Lions Head Coach Andy Farrell has challenged his players to be “the best versions of ourselves” during the first Test against Australia on Saturday.

The Lions head to Brisbane having won all five of their matches on Australian soil so far, scoring eight tries in three of them, meaning they have momentum on their side ahead of their first meeting with the Wallabies.

While this is Farrell’s first tour in charge, he was defence coach under Warren Gatland during the Lions’ previous visit to Australia in 2013.

It featured a closely fought Test series the Lions eventually won 2-1, much to the delight of the thousands of their supporters who attended, meaning Farrell is well placed to know about the step up in quality his players will face at Suncorp Stadium.

He said: “We want to see a performance that does everyone proud, and what does that look like?“When I’m talking about ‘everyone,’ you’ve seen the thousands of people that are turning up now – you’re walking round town and you get that Lions buzz, and it’s certainly going to hot up.

“It’s making sure that we do everyone proud, here and at home, with the type of performance that is one that’s going to walk forward to the challenge and be the best version of ourselves.

“You can talk about everything that the first Test always is on a Lions tour, but it’s making sure that we’re concentrating on the performance and making sure that we attack it straight from the get-go.”

We now know who will be following captain Maro Itoje on to the field to face the Wallabies after Farrell named his team for the first Test on Thursday.

There was plenty of debate when it came to who would play in the back row, with Tadhg Beirne, Tom Curry and Jack Conan all getting the nod while there will be an all-Scotland pairing of Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones.

Farrell has praised the Lions players not selected this week for the way they have continued to train hard through the week and make sure their team-mates in the matchday squad are as well prepared as possible for the weekend.

He said: “We’ve got good lads. We’ve got a good group.“The best thing about this week so far, for me, and it will probably continue right up until the end of the game, is how the lads who have been ‘the opposition’ this week, Australia, training in the yellow bibs, have helped prepare this team.

“It’s been top draw to a man, so that just shows where the group’s at and because of that sound preparation hopefully we’ll all benefit on Saturday from it.”