By Nick Cain - Read his expert opinion every week...

There is a view that picking a Lions Test team almost seven months before the 2025 Lions tour to Australia, as this week’s column does, is an empty exercise because it will bear little resemblance to the line-up in the series against the Wallabies.
I disagree. Throughout the eras, professional or amateur, Lions coaches, managers and selection panels, whether Dr Doug Smith and Carwyn James in 1971 or Andy Irvine and Warren Gatland in 2013, have scoured the playing stocks of the four home unions looking for the best of the best at least a ...