Lions-Rebels tickets on sale as Wallabies boss Schmidt hits reset button

Tickets for next year's British & Irish Lions tour went on sale in Australia on Monday despite the opposition in one of the nine fixtures, the Melbourne Rebels, facing the axe at the end of the season.

The Super Rugby team are in administration with millions of dollars of debt and Rugby Australia (RA) is reviewing their future having guaranteed only that the club will complete the current Super Rugby Pacific campaign.

RA chief executive Phil Waugh said that the review into the future of the Rebels was taking longer than he had hoped but guaranteed that the Lions would have a game in Melbourne on 22 July next year.

"While we are working through the Rebels situation, there will be still be a fixture in Melbourne on that date," Waugh said.

"We've talked about a Pasifika game or potentially Australia A or the equivalent so there's different options but at the moment the plan is to have a Rebels team."

New Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt, who led lreland between 2013 and 2019, is the man tasked with ensuring that Australia, currently ranked 10th in the world, are competitive for the Tests against the Lions in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney next July and August.

The New Zealander said the process of turning around a side that last year won two of nine Tests and crashed out of the World Cup in the pool stage for the first time was in its early stages.

"[I'm] coming in and trying to hit the reset button and get a bit of a foundation again that we can build from," he told reporters in Sydney.

"I've given myself a foundation period. I think it's a little bit promising at the moment and the discussions I've had with Super Rugby coaches have been really, really positive so far, and there's been some positives in those small steps."

Ireland will