As a testament to my boredom and loving the reaction of some I'm going to try and breath life into this thread. We need a good Lions argument.
I'm understanding this as picking right now and ignoring injuries. Expect a lot of WTF? and Irish bias.
1. Cian Healy - best loosehead in the world as voted by TRF (sorry England) has a good habit of playing well vs NZ
2. Rory Best - one bad year does not a bad player make. Ireland won 93% of their lineout ball. Great at the breakdown and on defense.
3. Dave Wilson - bit of an odd one but at the moment he's me choice. Strong carrier and good scrummager.
4. Joe Launchbury - possibly England's best player.
5. Paul O'Connell (c) - really hard to pick a secondrow, England are absolutely stacked, we have a few decent ones, there's AWJ and it's a relative area of strength for Scotland. However PO'C is an incredible leader and the bigger the occasion the bigger his performance. Here's how he did the last time he wore a Lions jersey:
http://dementedmole.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/lions-first-test-ruck-scores-roundup.png
6. Chris Robshaw - another leader, great hands and so much work
7. Sean O'Brien - he's Sean O'Brien
8. Jamie Heaslip - probably the call that would be ridiculed by the most people. It's well known that I'm a huge fan. For New Zealand I think he's the best option of those available.
9. Conor Murray - tough call to have him over Care but his partnership with Sexton and superior defenseive work wins it for him.
10. Jonathan Sexton - do I really have to argue this?
11. Georger North - kind of hard to pick anyone ahead of him.
12. Kyle Eastmond - seems somewhat underrated, breaking threat and an excellent passing game.
13. Manu Tuilagi - I think his partnership with Eastmond could be fantastic.
14. Tommy Bowe - great try record, fantastic fielder and has as good a chance as anyone to shackle Savea.
15. Mike Brown - he's a bit tired now but was awesome the rest of the year.
16. Dylan Hartley - Hibbard's gone backwards, I'd love to argue Sean Cronin but no, if Youngs fixed his throwing yes and maybe Webber. For the moment Hartley because of the relative solidity he brings.
17. Alex Corbiesero - clearly this one really involves ignoring the likely injury scenario, imagine being a tighthead and seeing Healy go off for him!
18. Mike Ross - even I'm questioning this, it a really snap decision. Jones and Cole haven't been great when playing imo. Part of the strong scrum off the bench thing I've got going.
19. Dave Attwood - also part of that strong scrum thing. Better at it then Lawes and has proven his impact from the bench.
20. Peter O'Mahony - offers more cover then the host of 8's left out and the likes of Lydiate. Great breakdown work and better lineout operator than any of the starting backrow Tom Wood could be added and it wouldn't really make much of a difference.
21. Danny Care - great way to up the tempo off the bench
22. Dan Biggar - just because
23. Leigh Halfpenny - because he covers fullback and wing. I'd love to put Fitzgerald here but for a variety of reasons that's more unrealistic than anybody else.
10 Irish
10 English
3 Welsh
Absoulutely ridiculous team and never going to happen. If I had to pick it next month I wouldn't pick it again
Head Coach: Joe Schmidt: y'ow he's the best there is
Forwards: Stuart Lancaster: needs to be involved
Scrum Coach: Graham Rowntree: has done some great work
Defense: Les Kiss, Andy Farrell and Shaun Edwards can scrap it out.
