Josh Adams misses Lions match to attend birth of first child via Zoom

There were late changes for the British & Irish Lions ahead of their match against South Africa A – one injury-enforced but the other for a much more uncommon reason: Josh Adams has pulled out to join his partner Georgia Davies via Zoom to witness the birth of their first child.

Explaining why Adams, the Lions 2021 tour’s top try-scorer, pulled out, Lions head coach Warren Gatland joked to Sky Sports ahead of the game: “She’s fully dilated and ready to push!”

Related: Top try-scorer Lions 2021

He also said via an official press release: “We’ve always said family comes first, so naturally Josh drops out as planned to be with his partner. We wish them both our very best wishes for an easy delivery.”

With Adams out, Anthony Watson moved to the left wing to replace him, with Liam Williams coming in to start at full-back.

When Adams scored four tries against the Sigma Lions in the first match of this tour on South African soil, Adams said: “It’s about two weeks to due date but (Georgia’s) doing brilliantly. We speak all the time and she’s doing fantastically.

“Funnily enough, she spoke to me after the game and I said ‘don’t jump around too much, you want to hold off a bit’! It was good.

“It’s nice. I’ve said before, I had the full support of all my family [heading out to South Africa], so it’s repaying them for backing me and giving me their full support prior to coming.

“Everything I’m doing out here, the hard work I’m putting in is all for them back home.”

Elsewhere, Owen Farrell also came in to replace Dan Biggar, after the Welsh fly-half picked up a minor ankle sprain in training yesterday.

They are late changes for what is considered the first real challenge of this Lions tour – you can find out everything you need to know about this showdown with our South Africa A v Lions preview.

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