Things just got serious

WHILE Ian McGeechan will officially announce the Lions side for the opening test in Durban at lunchtime tomorrow, this is the day that will make or break the aspirations and dreams of all within the Lions playing party.

With the necessity for a full-on training run for that test team today, the players will be told of the management’s final deliberations this morning. It can be a difficult time, especially for players who were deemed virtual certainties only weeks ago. Shane Williams is a classic case in point. The current IRB world player of the year was a shoo-in for selection from the time he rounded Bryan Habana on the Welsh tour of South Africa last summer. His form had deserted him in the Six Nations but on the hard grounds of the high veldt he was expected to excel. Instead his Ospreys colleagues Tommy Bowe and Lee Byrne have stolen his thunder and Williams has become a peripheral figure on tour.

That is why I am always reluctant to forecast a Lions test side in advance of a tour. So much happens both in training and in the games, including injuries, that it is a bit of a fool’s errand. To prove the case on this occasion I think that Stephen Ferris and Jerry Flannery would have walked into the test side had they remained injury free while Tomas O’Leary would certainly have exerted more pressure on Mike Phillips than either Harry Ellis or Mike Blair.