Brendan Gallagher: Fasten your seatbelts for a rip-roaring 2017

The great thing about the New Year, for the rugbyhead anyway, is that everything seems to accelerate after January 1. The film speeds up, time passes quicker, the rugby world goes into fast forward mode.
Massive stories bump into each other and compress, trophies and titles are won and reputations are made or occasionally lost overnight.  Right now is when the Rugby season truly comes alive and my gut feeling is that 2017 is going to be very special.
The groundwork has laboriously been put in place over the first four months, but suddenly the season hurtles to a conclusion. The next five or six months will go in a flash and the anticipation of an impending Lions tour will only heighten that impression.
The tour of New Zealand every 12 years or so is the Mother of all Lions trips and will dominate the second half of the season with the endless debate and discussion on the tour party and the Lions’ prospects. Every big match – Premiership, PRO12, European Cup and Six Nations – from now until the squad is announced early in April serves in some way as a trial for somebody.
You can either get sniffy about that – and I once went through that phase feeling that Lions mania detracted too much from the other competitions – or you can join the party which is now my approach. A Lions tour to New Zealand is rare and special and rugby fans should fill their boots.
So what can expect?  Let me start by ‘doing’ a Dr Doug Smith and confidently state that the Lions will win the series 2-1. Actually, the Lions manager in 1971 boldly proclaimed that it would be 2-1 with the fourth Test drawn and was bang on in every respect. We’ve only got three Test matches to consider these days so I’m settling for a straight forward 2-1.
And the cause for all this optimism despite a brutal itinerary and virtually no preparation time? Well firstly for reasons unknown we continue to underestimate Warren Gatland as a coach. Having masterminded Wales’ Grand Slams and a Lions series win in, beating the All Blacks in New Zealand with the Lions is possibly the last big challenge of his career.
And that challenge comes at a time when Gatland probably needs such a massive motivation to re-energise his coaching career.  He’s been at the coal face for a long time now. It’s 19 years since he took over as Ireland coach, he knows every trick in the trade and he will have had a year to plot and plan this one trip.
Secondly the Lions, if they select wisely and well, will travel with one of their strongest ever squads.  What’s more it will be a hungry squad with top players from England, Ireland and Scotland on the up and eager to prove themselves in the toughest testing ground of all.  I can also see Wales roaring back into contention in the Six Nations.
The 1993 and 2005 Lions squads for New Zealand were based largely on formidable England teams that were, however, just past their best. That won’t be the case this summer
Already I see a clutch of world class players in all the key positons, with huge strength in depth. In practical terms that means Gatland will have the rump of his Test team inked in before the Lions even fly south which will only add spice to the Six Nations and the concluding stages of the big domestic competitions.
Given this abundance of quality can a bolter come through on the blindside? That’s a difficult one and I’m not sure we will ever see the classic uncapped bolter, but Gatland knows his mind and has been keeping a close tab on one or two underutilised talents.
To beat New Zealand the Lions must score three of four tries per Test, the games will not be goalkicking shoot-outs. They will need the cleverest of playmakers and proven try scorers so I wouldn’t discount Danny Cipriani, David Strettle and Christian Wade who is the ‘Shane’ type player England refuse to trust.  Gatland might beg to differ. All will be revealed in the coming months.
My Lions starting fifteen for the first Test:  Stuart Hogg; Liam Williams, Scott Williams, Owen Farrell, Anthony Watson; Jonny Sexton, Conor Murray; Mako Vunipola, Dylan Hartley, Tadh Furlong, Alun Wyn Jones, Jonny Gray, Maro Itoje, Sam Warburton, Billy Vunipola.