British & Irish Lions 2017 - Let the tour begin!

… and so it begins! 

The 2017 British & Irish Lions tour has commenced and it’s fair to say that the buzz of excitement has already built into a great wave of noise. Already all of our newspapers and social media timelines and filled with images of the touring squad and the first squad announcement is en route imminently.  

41 individuals have now left their home nations at the door of the Qantas Airbus that flew them to New Zealand and as a result have become one group. A group that is in pursuit of what would be the greatest victory ever in the history of the touring party. 

Of course the back-to-back World Champions await and the British & Irish Lions must endeavour to deliver history without the man that could have conceivably returned as 'Player of the Series' - Billy Vunipola. While we all have had time to digest his injury it still leaves you disappointed for him and pondering on the question ‘what if’ even before a moment of rugby has even been played. However, we must move on. Alas history shows us that further injuries are likely to impact this tour and if that is the case then we all hope that members of the touring party or those called in surpass our expectations and surprise us as a result. 

For months the subject of the British & Irish Lions’ schedule has been the topic of discussion. Crazy and insane are just a couple of the words used to described it and now the squad are living and breathing it. 

Olympic Gold Medal winning sevens coach Ben Ryan wrote an extremely interesting piece around jet lag on his blog and I firmly suggest that you take a peruse through it here. His experience of handling jet lag, and ensuring that professional players do so efficiently, is much greater than all of ours. As he comments in the article, I’m sure that the team supporting the Lions will have worked hard to limit the impact that the schedule may have on their players. With just a few days in-between landing and the opening-match it is a brutal schedule but the players themselves cannot think about it in that way whatsoever. Instead, a positive mindset will be a crucial towards banishing the cobwebs that arrive from making such a long journey across the world.

It’s guaranteed that those that take to the field on Saturday afternoon won’t feel their usual fresh and vibrant selves but those selected I’m sure will disregard those feelings entirely. Up until the point of getting on the plane the players themselves won't have truly called themselves British & Irish Lions. With intense finales to their domestic seasons, injuries could have arrived and robbed them of the chance to tour so they actually only feel like they like a Lion when they pull on a match jersey for the first time. Therefore while the jet lag will be lurking around and trying to de-rail them, the excitement of finally becoming a 2017 British & Irish Lion will be another factor that helps to steer these players through the next few days. Equally we all know that this game is just as much of a shop window for them as the second or third match on tour... Test spots are up for grabs and with such a competitive squad every moment on the field counts. 

The 23 that will face the Provincial XV will be named at 8pm (BST) tonight so for now I'll pause on this article and return following Warren Gatland's selections...