Big Lions tour looms over Six Nations play

The 2017 Six Nations will have a decisive bearing on selection for the Lions tour to New Zealand and is sure to lead to contentious calls.

Form will shape and dictate the choices made.

One of the reasons for the undoing of the 2005 British and Irish Lions tour party to New Zealand was that Clive Woodward took an enlarged squad, 45 players, and included several who had done wonders in an England shirt, albeit 18 months earlier at the Rugby World Cup. By 2005 those juices were beginning to run dry.

Warren Gatland admits to having about 70-80 players in mind as the championship begins. He will have to whittle that down to 35-37 by mid-April. At least he has given himself and his coaches, Steve Borthwick (England), Rob Howley (Wales) and Andy Farrell (Ireland), plenty of time to assess what they have seen throughout the championship, to argue and refine, until they name the chosen men.

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There are invariably high-profile casualties. It is not just a question of individual talent but of what best suits the composition of that particular Lions party.

Eddie Jones put it well when stating that the Lions is "a massive attraction that must not become a massive distraction".

Even his Japanese wife, Hiroko, well-versed in her husband's obsessive rugby ways, was moved to question him as to what all this Lions frenzy in the media was about eight months before it even happened.

Such, then, are the stakes. The Six Nations has its unique dynamic, its own narrative, its particular twists and turns. If it is to be remembered it will be for fierce contests, raw tribal clashes, acts of stupendous artistry, or daring, or physicality.

The Lions adds a veneer to it; it does not become the intrinsic value of the tournament itself. Gatland will have a different perspective on events to the rest of the watching millions. He is looking at individuals. We are absorbed in the entity itself, of the day and, by extension, of the whole.

Ian McGeechan went against the grain in 1997, not just by picking three uncapped players in Will Greenwood, Jim Mallinder and Martin Corry, but also in opting for Martin Johnson as captain before he had established himself with England. Jerry Guscott was something of a wild-card pick in 1989, again before he was capped, and again eight years later when England's centre combo was Will Carling and Phil de Glanville.

There will be those sorts of surprises to come. Watch out, then, for the tour bolters, be it flyhalf Joey Carbery or centre Garry Ringrose, both from Ireland, or Scotland prop Zander Fagerson, or England's Kyle Sinckler or Welshman Keelan Giles. Take your pick.