Rugby: A pride of Lions - dream team from 60 years of rugby

It's a dream task ... until you start to wade through the names, the squads and the actual tours.

Since 1950, the British & Irish Lions have made 16 tours, six of them to South Africa, six to New Zealand and Australia combined and, since 1989, two to Australia and a couple to New Zealand alone.

During the course of those 16 tours, a total of 566 players have been used by the Lions, some of them as replacements. The biggest number of players on a Lions tour was four years ago in New Zealand, when Clive Woodward used a total of 51. Madness. And they still lost the test series 3-0!

The smallest playing squads were 31, in 1950 and 1955; in other words, 30 originally selected players and one replacement on each trip. Not bad in 1950 given the fact that the Lions left British shores in early April, by sea, and did not return until early October, a tour lasting about six months.

By contrast, the 2009 Lions will be away about seven weeks.

But who are the creme de la creme, the players who would earn one of the 15 select places chosen from a field of 566? The interesting thing is that some selections are easy. A very few players, like Gareth Edwards, for example, would walk into the side. Likewise at fullback. Has there been a more complete, all-round No 15 than the great J.P.R. Williams? Somehow, I doubt it.

There have been some excellent Lions full-backs, but Williams stands supreme.

Jack Kyle had some serious opposition at outside half, principally from Cliff Morgan and especially Barry John. But Kyle's genius earned him the decision. But in other positions, the choice is tough. I chose Tony O'Reilly on one wing because his try-scoring feats on those 1955 and 1959 tours were extraordinary. The Irishman scored 16 tries in 15 appearances in South Africa in '55 and then 22 more in 23 appearances in '59 in New Zealand and Australia.

Thirty-eight tries on two tours? Astonishing. No one has ever beaten and now never will surpass those records.

On the other wing, I have gone for that brilliant Welsh flyer Ken Jones, who toured in 1950 with the Lions. Always a Newport man, he scored 146 tries in 293 appearances for the club, and got 17 for Wales during his 44 caps.

Scotland's Arthur Smith, Lions captain to South Africa in 1962, and Wales' Gerald Davies, who will manage the Lions this summer, were my runners-up here. To score the number of tries O'Reilly managed for the Lions in 1955 and 1959 required a special provider inside him. Jeff Butterfield was that man in '55, Ireland's David Hewitt four years later. Butterfield was a brilliant, thinking centre, an intuitive playmaker and a pivot while Hewitt had searing pace.

But only Butterfield gets my vote for a place because I wanted to include Mike Gibson, one of the most brilliant all-round rugby players the world has seen in the past 50 years.

But what of the forwards? Bryn Meredith of Newport and Wales was technically the best hooker the British Isles has seen for decades. He played every test in South Africa in 1955 and was superb. Yet in 1959, when he was just as good, the Lions chose Ireland hooker Ronnie Dawson as their captain and Meredith never played in a single test. Meredith gets my vote ahead of the late Irish captain Karl Mullen, who died this week.

Ray McLoughlin, probably the best technical prop in the British Isles and Ireland in 40 years, is my tight head. A scrummager of iron-like intensity, McLoughlin played in three tests on the disastrous 1966 tour to New Zealand, which the Lions lost 4-0, and broke his thumb punching a Canterbury player one week before the first test on the 1971 tour, also in New Zealand. But he was the best for years.

Fran Cotton, who made Lions tours in 1974, 1977 and 1980, wins the loose head slot, ahead of Scotland's brave "Mighty Mouse", Ian McLauchlan of the 1971 and 1974 vintages. In '74 and '77, Cotton played in seven of the eight tests. In South Africa in 1980, he suffered a suspected heart attack during a match at Stellenbosch and went to Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town where Dr Christiaan Barnard had pioneered the world's first heart transplant. "I could fit you with a new one," smiled Barnard.

"It would have to be a bloody big one" quipped Cotton's English front row colleague, hooker Peter Wheeler.

My second rows? Martin Johnson of England. No words needed here because no one challenged him. And Willie John McBride of Ireland, cornerstone of the Lions packs in 1971 and 1974 who laid the foundations for the outstanding successes of those two tours, gets the other lock berth.

But McBride wouldn't be big enough to play lock nowadays, say some. Perhaps true. But Jack Kyle wouldn't be physical enough to survive in the modern game, either. That doesn't matter - we're picking the best of the best, and they are chosen on their deeds during their era. You can't catapult a player forward 40 or 50 years and say he'd be no good.

McBride toured with the Lions in 1962, 1966, 1968, 1971 and finally 1974 as captain. Was he the greatest lineout forward ever? Certainly not. Was he a phenomenon with ball in hand? You must be joking. I can hear the great man roaring with laughter at such a suggestion. But for spirit, the encouragement of others, a never-say-die attitude and sheer will to win, no one (apart from Johnson) comes near McBride.

That was what made him so special.

Which leaves the back row and No 8. Mervyn Davies? As with Gareth Edwards and Martin Johnson, no challengers, no debate. "Merv the Swerve" was one of the key men in 1971 and 1974 on those triumphant Lions tours. He had it all: ball handling, tackling, driving off the fringes, covering, reading the play, tail of the lineout work. Incredible player ...

My open side only toured with the Lions once, in 1974. But Fergus Slattery was a ferocious openside flanker, a player who hunted down ball-carrying opponents (and sometimes those without the ball!) with a devilish delight. Slattery was fast, brave, courageous, destructive and utterly committed. He wore his heart on his sleeve and was a key player for the '74 Lions.

At blindside, I choose Lawrence Dallaglio, a fantastic ball-handling back-row man who could play at No 6 or 8. Dallaglio was a key figure in England's World Cup triumph and the Lions' 1997 series success.

So that's the 15 best Lions of all time. There's just one caveat - there's no goal kicker. If you want you must put Barry John ahead of Jack Kyle. I'm not bothered. I'm content at the prospect of watching Edwards serve the free-running Kyle, and the cerebral talents of Gibson and Butterfield releasing Jones and O'Reilly out wide.

Mouth-watering stuff ...

GREATEST LIONS XV

* 15 J.P.R. Williams (Wales)
* 14 K. Jones (Wales)
* 13 J. Butterfield (England)
* 12 C.M.H. Gibson (Ireland)
* 11 A.J.F. O'Reilly (Ireland)
* 10 J. Kyle (Ireland)
* 9 G. Edwards (Wales)
* 1 F. E. Cotton (England)
* 2 B. Meredith (Wales)
* 3 R.J. McLoughlin (Ireland)
* 4 M. Johnson (England)
* 5 W.J. McBride (Ireland) (Capt.)
* 6 L. Dallaglio (England)
* 7 F. Slattery (Ireland)
* 8 M. Davies (Wales)

Replacements: T.G.R. Davies (Wales), D. Hewitt (Ireland), Bleddyn Williams (Wales), B. John (Wales), R.E.G. Jeeps (England); S. Millar (Ireland), K. Mullen (Ireland), P. O'Connell (Ireland), R. Uttley (England)