Irish to have the Lions’ share

IAN McGEECHAN let the cat out of the bag the other week when he expressed a preference for a forward to captain the Lions in the forthcoming tour of South Africa.

Although the head coach will listen to the views of his aides, he is the sole selector and not likely to have changed his mind over the past few days, especially having noted the manner in which Paul O’Connell skippered Munster in their recent defeats of Leinster in the Magners League and Ospreys in the Heineken Cup.

So O’Connell will become the 10th Irishman to captain the Lions after Tom Smith (1910), Sammy Walker (1938), Karl Mullen (1950), Robin Thompson (1955), Ronnie Dawson (1959), Tom Kiernan (1968), Willie John McBride (1974), Ciaran Fitzgerald (1983) and Brian O’Driscoll (2005).