Rugby: Cherish the Lions while they are here

British and Irish Lions fans. Photo / Getty

It's a good idea to cherish the Lions while they are here. Who knows if they will be back in New Zealand in 2029 as planned, and if they do, what a tour will look like then.

For the older generation, a Lions tour has already been reduced from the epic four-month crusades of old where the visitors could plough through 20-plus games and four tests.

Those were tours back in the day. Proper missions that tested players beyond anything they had ever encountered.

In contrast the 2017 Lions will be here for six weeks and play seven games and three tests and yet it will still be seen as an epic mission - a highly demanding schedule.

By 2029 there is talk that a Lions tour will be a four-week in and out job, with a couple of warm up games and a test series. And if that is what it becomes, then everyone has to ask, what's the point?

The magic of the Lions is that they are the game's last relic. They are the last tangible connection to a past that not everyone wants to be so readily forgotten.

The essence of rugby, even as players become bigger, stronger and faster and shy away more from the bonding customs of old and study the bible of sports science, is that it comes with a sense of camaraderie and friendship that few other sports can match.

The clever part of rugby is that big men can hammer each other for 80 minutes - literally take lumps out of one another, stand on bits they shouldn't, pull body parts that are off limits, poke areas that should never be poked, curse each other's mothers, swear to end all of their remaining days right there and then and yet, walk off the field as best mates.

It is peculiar but it is also endearing and the Lions of the amateur era have some of the most fantastic stories to tell about their adventures and none of them have anything to do with what happened on the field.

The international game already has enough in-and-out test football. We still talk of the All Blacks' end of season tour every year as if it is some kind of epic venture to the north where they say goodbye to loved ones, knowing that by the time they get back, New Zealand will be a different place.

But it's nothing like that in reality. A tour is a misnomer - the All Blacks play three or four random tests and it's a cold, clinical business of moving them from A to B with lots of training and not so much fun along the way.

The Lions, despite having seen their tour reduce to six weeks in recent times, are still a massive point of difference in the calendar.

They are still the only team in the world that gets remotely close to being on a genuine tour and that's the bit that can't be lost.

If the Lions become just another in and out team they will be doomed. There is so much of that already that those who defend the Lions and have fought to preserve their space in an already ridiculously full calendar, won't have much of a case to make any more and something precious will be lost.

So maybe this will be the last time the Lions come to New Zealand and that puts a little extra pressure on everyone to remember to embrace them.

It may well be that the visitors end up being thumped wherever they go - that they are unable to live with the pace, intensity and skills of even New Zealand's Super Rugby teams.

It may well be that the All Blacks drill them hard in the first two tests and then destroy them for fun in the third. And it may well be that the wheels come off inside the Lions camp and rifts develop, cliques tighten and everyone turns on coach Warren Gatland.

But that's all part of this miraculous package that is the Lions. Drama and intrigue are built into a longer tour and long may the Lions continue.