British and Irish Lions forward Jamie Heaslip has insisted that he will try to take advantage of playing Combined Country in order to stake his claim for a starting place against Australia.
The tourists play their fourth match of the tour on Tuesday, with Combined Country supposedly the weakest opposition on paper that they will face on their travels.
However, the Ireland skipper believes that the encounter is still a massive opportunity for the player, with just 11 days to go until the first Test against the Wallabies.
"I'm not too concerned about things that are outside my own control," Heaslip told The Express. "But what I can do is my job and go about it professionally, getting the detail of scrum, lineout and defence right, all the things I have to focus on. I can't worry about what the opposition is going to do.
"We haven't had a lot of time to focus on them because of the way these tours go. All I can do is do my job right.
"Obviously there's a Test spot to be won – you can't ignore it but you can't think about it a whole lot either."
The match against the Combined Country gets underway at 10.30am on Tuesday.
Matt Cotton
