Leicester scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet has been called up to train with the British and Irish Lions after Ireland’s Jamison Gibson-Park suffered a minor glute strain.
Van Poortvliet will fly to Dublin on Tuesday morning to help the team prepare for their match against Argentina on Friday.
Gibson-Park, England’s Alex Mitchell and Wales’ Tomos Williams are the three scrum-halves named in head coach Andy Farrell’s original squad.
Farrell has called up several players to help the Lions prepare for their warm-up match against the Pumas, with England front-rowers Jamie George and Asher Opoku-Fordjour filling in, in the absence of players involved in the Premiership and United Rugby Championship finals last weekend, before returning home.
Van Poortvliet was England’s first-choice nine before the 2023 Rugby World Cup but sustained an ankle injury, which forced him to withdraw from the tournament and gave Mitchell an opportunity to stake his claim.
He has been in fine form during Leicester’s run to the Premiership final and edged ahead of Harry Randall to earn a place on the bench at the back end of England’s Six Nations campaign.
