Lions tour adds spice to contest

The Six Nations Championship is always a two-horse race, right?

Wrong. This season's tournament has at least three hot contenders at the starting gate: a dependable old nag in England, a temperamental thoroughbred in France and an increasingly dangerous-looking frontrunner in Ireland - with Wales handily poised to sneak up on the rails should any of the favourites find the going too tough.

And the prize? Bigger and better than usual, as a matter of fact. Places on the Lions tour of New Zealand are there for the taking.

Now, the good folk of All Black country may be wondering to themselves: "If Sir Clive Woodward is bringing 40-odd players here for an 11-match tour, how the hell will any half-decent player miss out?"

A good question, but not that good. Leaving aside the desperate Scots, who will do well to contribute more than half-a-dozen to the Lions party, virtually every frontline international in the British Isles has big plans for June and July.

England and Ireland could send over seven high-class locks between them - Danny Grewcock, Ben Kay, Steve Borthwick, Simon Shaw, Paul O'Connell, Malcolm O'Kelly, Donncha O'Callaghan - and still leave good men at home.

The halfback, first five-eighths and flanker positions are likely to be every bit as competitive.

A Lions tour, especially one to New Zealand, adds an entire spice island's worth of hot seasoning to a Six Nations competition.

More worryingly from the Brits' point of view, an international championship can do untold damage to a Lions tour. The last time the red-jerseyed hordes took on the silver fern in 1993, they included the entire Scottish tight five who had played in that season's tournament.

Who remembers Peter Wright, Kenny Milne, Paul Burnell, Damian Cronin and Andy Reed now? They did not exactly put themselves in the front rank of Lions legends.

Selection will be more difficult than the critics of Woodward's extravagance tend to assume, especially if the 2005 Six Nations lives up to its billing as the most open in a generation.

But even at this stage, it is possible to identify the prime movers and shakers.

If Ireland enjoy a decent run, as they should with England and France at Lansdowne Rd, golden-boy centre Brian O'Driscoll will have a strong claim to the captaincy.

O'Connell, their outstanding lock from Munster, is Martin Johnson incarnate and can be expected to secure his place in the Lions' engineroom.

Many suspect that Simon Easterby and Jonny O'Connor (the former a tireless workhorse playing overseas at Llanelli, the latter a Josh Kronfeld impersonator playing overseas at Wasps) will bag two of the flanker positions, while Ronan O'Gara is likely to be a test contender at first five-eighth, especially if the eternally incapacitated Jonny Wilkinson continues to struggle for fitness.

Wales have a glamour-puss of their own in Gavin Henson, who has hair to die for as well as a right boot blessed by the sporting gods.

Their back division is razor-sharp these days: Gareth Thomas and Shane Williams provide contrasting threats out wide, Stephen Jones pulls the strings at 10 and a veritable phalanx of halfbacks - Dwayne Peel, Gareth Cooper, Michael Phillips - busy themselves at the base of a scrum nowhere near as compromised as it once was.

Gethin Jenkins, a quality loosehead prop with designs on a test place, is the man to watch up front, but there is a risk of the backside falling out of the Welsh campaign should they fail to beat those English swine in the opening game at the Millennium Stadium.

Talking of England, the average New Zealander will not have heard of Mathew Tait.

The 18-year-old centre from the northeast - he attended the same school as Rob Andrew, who now oversees his progress at Newcastle - is the talk of the town thanks to some performances of jaw-dropping maturity in the Premiership and the Heineken Cup.

England coach Andy Robinson has pretty much done away with Henry Paul after substituting him within a nanosecond - well, 24 minutes - of the start of the Cook Cup match against the Wallabies last November.

Tait is the buzz-boy now, with Mark Cueto, a free-scoring wing from Sale, and Harry Ellis, a fractious little halfback from Leicester. England will be strong up front - Julian White, that ox of a tighthead prop, has been wreaking havoc all season - while the Irish and Welsh fancy their chances of breaking things up with ball in hand.

All of which probably means that France, with a reservoir of talent bordering on the bottomless, will probably retain their title.

This will not be of concern to the All Blacks, of course. Sylvain Marconnet and Serge Betsen do not qualify for the Lions. 

* Chris Hewett is a rugby writer for the Independent.

Round one

All live on Sky's Rugby Channel

Sunday, February 6: France v Scotland, Stade de France 2.55am.

Wales v England, Millennium Stadium 6.25am.

Monday, February 7: Italy v Ireland, Stadio Flaminio 3.25am.