Let the speculation end, replaced by the 38 certainties that remain. The quadrennial whirring vortex of projection and conjecture, the black hole into which all rugby debate has been dragged over the last six months, can stop spinning – the British and Irish Lions squad has been named.
The ceiling of The Indigo is rather less ornate than that of the Sistine Chapel, and white smoke emanating from the O2 would have been a rather worrying sign, but Thursday’s other major announcement was no less consequential to rugby worshippers than events at the Vatican. A worldwide brand of considerable financial and cultural heft seen as antiquated, anachronistic and insular by its detractors? Stretching the metaphor we may be, but the Lions and the Catholic Church certainly have their similarities.
