Rugby’s most outspoken and influential journalist

YOU MAY already be considering your own selection for next year’s British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa and taking issues with mine – you rotters! Picking Lions teams is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

The Lions! They are a wonder of the rugby world. The dedication towards the whole concept from the (battered) elite players of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales is magnificent. So, too, the astonishing support and good humour of travelling fans, and the trans-hemisphere love from the legions of you who stay at home in Britain and Ireland and yet fervently follow every move.

And so why do we always force them to play in a minefield? That’s gratitude for you. The way they are treated by officialdom in all the home unions is despicable. I would place the RFU and Premiership Rugby as the most culpable bodies taking part in the strangulation, and especially some senior union officials who sit on the Lions committee, sign up for every free tour with attendant sustenance (red and white), slump in gigantic