If the Lions tour must continue in its current format...

At least make it the year after the RWC.

It is extreme in the current schedule for the disruption all Home Nations' development plans for the Grand Prix.

I prefer the year of the RWC. What better way to prepare for knockout rugby than coming up against Gatlandball.  

That would make it an unbearably long time without a break. Players come off the end of the 2014/2015 season, head straight into world cup camp, play the world cup, play the rest of the club season and then head into a Lions tour? They would get a fortnight off for two years. Wouldn't do their bodies any good.

Love the Lions and long may it continue............ Great advert for bringing the best of the best (management, coaches, players) together to learn off each other.

Rather like footy where you have the Euros in-between the World Cup

Oh sorry! - realised now who the OP was, up to then I thought this was a serious thread not a wind-up

thomh wrote:That would make it an unbearably long time without a break. Players come off the end of the 2014/2015 season, head straight into world cup camp, play the world cup, play the rest of the club season and then head into a Lions tour? They would get a fortnight off for two years. Wouldn't do their bodies any good.

At least if it were RWC+1,Thom, (not that the Lions players' season would be materially longer), it would allow national coaches to rest or even retire players three years out and allow scope for future development.

International coaches can retire players whenever they like - they don't need to wait for a Lions tour.

Personally I would guess that having the two most physically demanding periods of a NH player's career only one year apart and with no break between them would risk causing quite serious fatigue and injury problems.