"It comes to few to be compared to Carwyn James and Alec Ferguson - two vastly different men linked by a genius for constructing winning sports teams - in the space of a few minutes, but then the outlandish is becoming almost commonplace for Ian McGeechan." Huw Richards writes

It comes to few to be compared to Carwyn James and Alec Ferguson - two vastly different men linked by a genius for constructing winning sports teams - in the space of a few minutes, but then the outlandish is becoming almost commonplace for Ian McGeechan.

Three years on from responding 'only if they're sending out coaches in wheelchairs' when asked about the likelihood of touring yet again with the British and Irish Lions, McGeechan now looks forward to his seventh trip down under - number four as head coach, to add to two as a player and one in Clive Woodward's army of assistants in 2005 - with the Lions.

It was, as Andy Irvine more or less said, the only possible choice. Even if the choice of Warren Gatland had been politically feasible, it was time for a restatement of the enduring qualities that make the Lions, theoretically an anomaly in the modern rugby world, so exciting.

Irvine, McGeechan and tour manager Gerald Davies - who would enhance any Lions back division if only they could take 35 years off their ages - are aware, having played in both winning and losing Lions teams, that there is a strong element of retrospection in this.

Clive Woodward was absolutely right in 2005 when he pointed out that his rugby-tour-as-military-expedition model would be hailed as brilliant if the Lions won and derided if they did not. As McGeechan pointed out 'luck always plays a part'.

Graham Henry's 2001 team could reasonably claim that they were an interception and a blown line-out away from the retrospective immortality conferred on winning Lions. But even then, and certainly in 2005 when the margin of defeat brooked no debate, there was a sense of something being lost.

These were teams who lived, in a phrase which recurred consistently throughout Wednesday's presentations 'in a bubble' - detached from fans and media. Nor was it a happy bubble, with players discontented at apparently predetermined hierarchies within the squads.

McGeechan remained, as he was in 2005, studiously loyal to Woodward and the way he ran his tour, pointing out that it was 'very well organised'.

The critique is implicit, although it perhaps came closest to breaking cover when he talked of the importance of not prejudging players but assessing them on what they are doing now rather than 'working on what you saw two years ago' - roughly the time between Woodward's England reaching their peak in 2003 and many of the same players struggling for the Lions in New Zealand.

As he argues: "Some players do grow in a Lions jersey". So perhaps do some coaches. His record with Northampton, Scotland and Wasps is impressive enough, but it is his work with the Lions that will ensure his ranking in the very highest circles of any coaching Valhalla.

But they have to be given a chance to do that growing, and for it to be visible to the people who make the big decisions on tour. Hence the cut from 44 to between 35 and 37 players on this tour, and an integrated rather than divided coaching group.

To be fair to Woodward there was an underlying logic. When top rugby was a 15-man game, touring teams took 30 players. Now it is a 22-man game, there is a case for taking 44 - particularly to New Zealand, where distance and jetlag make rapid replacement almost impossible.

The problem, though, is in the length of tours. Take 44 men on a 10-match tour and some will hardly play. Others will feel marginalised.

It remains an open question whether a slightly smaller number can be sufficiently accommodated. Even the 97 Lions, it was pointed out, had an extra three matches in order to assess talent and give everyone a chance.

These, though, are the men to try. It helps that McGeechan and Davies were both Lions and understand quite what it all means. But that is not of itself a prerequisite of success with the Lions. Carwyn Jones was not a Lion. Nor was Clive Rowlands, a highly effective manager in 1989. Clive Woodward was a Lion.

As Gerald Davies, whose literate eloquence will be distinct plus in a post that involves a fair amount of public relations, says: "We have to bring the traditions of the past to bear on the present."

They recognise what is attractive in the Lions concept, that players from the four countries come together and go on a trip that takes them to schools and hospitals (and not just for the treatment of injuries) as well as training grounds and stadiums.

Neither, though, is in thrall to the past. McGeechan says that it is his day to day contact with the players of today that keeps him enthusiastic.

That Davies has been a journalist and Welsh Rugby Union official might seem less convincing - both roles offer scope for dwelling in the past - but he retains the sharp, questing intelligence that led the Welsh Rugby Union's official historians to describe him as 'looking into the camera not to please it, but to interrogate it'.

Nor in either case should a pleasant, approacheable persona lead anyone to believe that they are not ferociously competitive. As Davies pointed out 'the objective is to win. If you're not trying to win, why enter into an activity in the first place?'.

But they would reject both the proposition that 'winning is the only thing' or that such attitudes are the best way to be winners. As Davies said 'You can be a winner and a nice person at the same time, I don't see these as mutually exclusive. I don't see a line between enjoying yourself and the task of winning."

Each is living proof of those sanely balanced propositions. The Lions, as always, face a formidable task. Once again, the third time in four tours, they must overthrow the reigning World champions in their backyard.

But in making two of the three key appointments - with the captaincy still to come - they could hardly have started better.