IMMORTALITY beckons. On Friday the Lions kick off their 10-match three-Test tour against Western Australia in Perth. It doesn’t get better than this for a British and Irish rugby player. A tilt at the world champions in their own backyard. Nirvana.

And, for once, the omens are propitious. In November 1988, England beat the Wallabies at Twickenham. A sizeable contingent of that side was parachuted into the tour party the following summer and the Lions went on to nick the series 2–1. This time round the scenario is spookily similar: a narrow victory for England over Australia last autumn and 18 Englishmen in the 37-man squad. Another blow struck for Northern Hemisphere rugby following on from the humbling of the Springboks in 1997? It would be sweet if it happened.

The major figures are quietly confident. «Australia have woken up to the fact that the Lions are coming,» manager Donal Lenihan, said. «To be fair, the way England have played has whetted their appetite. Usually they complain that the same old shower are coming back down. `We’ll hammer them,’ they say. Now they’re saying, `Maybe this crowd is better than we think’.»

Lions coach Graham Henry, though perhaps less bullish, is also acutely aware of the size of the task. «I think this tour is going to be absolutely immense and the Tests will be of the highest quality,» he said. «I hope our guys realise that they will never play in another series with the demands that this one will place upon them. Australia have some outstanding players. They’ve got great physical presence, they’ve got clarity in their minds and they believe in themselves.»

The Lions will be as well prepared as any side in the game’s history. The selection process started way back in July. Over 200 games have been watched either live or on tape and, despite concerns over tight-head prop and the back three, the consensus is that the party reflects the best British and Irish rugby has to offer. A feeling intensified by the Lions’ willingness to bite the bullet and ditch Gregor Townsend and Scott Gibbs, two stalwarts of the South African tour.

Everything about the trip smacks of pragmatism. Every hotel has been checked, every training pitch inspected. The itinerary is such that, leaving aside the long haul from Perth to the quaintly named Dairy Farmers’ Stadium in Townsville, Queensland, for the second match of the tour, no venue is more than an hour and a half’s journey from the next. It may sound horribly antiseptic to the 1971 Lions who took 3.5 months and 26 matches to traipse around Australia and New Zealand, but sentiment departed the international rugby scene years ago.

And yet, nagging away is the thought that the Lions may already have bungled it, that in spite of their carefully laid plans, they are a crucial man short.

Those anxieties revolve around the way the Lions will play. For obvious reasons, Henry is keeping things close to his chest when talking about just how he intends to unravel Australia. But he has thrown out a few hints. «There’ll be a Lions playing style,» he said. «We’ve an idea of how we want to play the game. The make-up of our team and the opposition will determine how we are going to play but it’ll be based on the English style, I guess.»

All of which is fine in theory except for the minor detail that Brian Ashton, the man responsible for England’s attack this season, won’t be in Australia. Most of the rest of the England coaching team will be there: assistant coach Andy Robinson, defence coach Phil Larder and kicking coach Dave Alred. But, no Ashton. It is conceivable that Robinson or Henry possess the insight and the knowledge to evolve and refine the approach, and there is always the safety net of a long-distance phone call to Ashton, but Lions tours continually throw up new problems to solve, and it would have made more sense to take Ashton along for the ride given the importance of a coherent attack strategy.

In fact, the mind games between the two coaches may well be more important than the exertions of the players they oversee. Rod Macqueen, Australia’s tactical genius, is retiring at the end of the season. Henry knows him from his time with the Auckland Blues in New Zealand, before he fetched up in Wales, when Macqueen was making a name for himself with ACT. Both are no-nonsense individuals, massively experienced and both are profoundly aware that every tactical nuance, every selection will be examined and analysed in the minutest detail.

Macqueen has the problem of forging a team in transition. David Wilson, Tim Horan, Jason Little have all gone. Stirling Mortlock, Australia’s new find in the backs and a more-than-useful goal-kicker, is out of contention with a serious shoulder injury and there are some in Australia who are beginning to think the unthinkable, that the icon who goes by the name of John Eales is past his best.

Henry’s task is simpler, though no less challenging. He has to make a genuinely destructive tight-head out of either Phil Vickery or Dai Young and persuade them to do some damage to an Aussie front row which is workmanlike at best; find a way of covering weaknesses in his own wing and full-back positions which, Iain Balshaw and Dan Luger apart, are either vulnerable in defence or impotent in attack; and find a way of unifying the playing style of four countries who all approach continuity and the tackle area differently.

No such problems for the players, though. It is one of the idiosyncrasies of professionalism that, on Lions tours at least, the players have never had it so easy. Business class air travel there and back, top-of-the-range hotels and the additional motivation of a cool £28,000 a man for a series win is only half the story. Throw in a back-up staff of 12, including an admin assistant and a masseur to attend to their every need, plus a miserly 10 matches to be shared between a massive squad of 37 players, and there can be no excuses for failure.

It is perfectly possible for someone like Jonny Wilkinson, crucial to the tour’s success and with a neck injury which will benefit from as much R and R as possible early on, to play just four games in six weeks. That scenario would see Wilkinson starting against Queensland and New South Wales, the big Saturday games in the build-up to the first Test. And then, if the Lions win the first two Tests, signing autographs as others are given a chance in the third. There will also be some lesser lights who fail to make the Test team who could start in as few as two matches.

No matter. One of the consequences of a shortish tour is that the big matches are even more gladiatorial and already there is a sense of theatre surrounding the internationals at the Gabba in Brisbane, the Colonial Stadium, Melbourne and Stadium Australia, Sydney. Tickets are seriously scarce. Ten thousand supporters are said to be travelling with the Lions and, with the Brisbane and Melbourne venues ridiculously small, even resident Australians are struggling for seats.

And all the while the questions are starting to build. Who will partner Brian O’Driscoll in the centre? Will Jason Robinson play more than a cameo role? Who will be the first big-name injury casualty? How long can Martin Johnson’s air of invincibility last? Howley, Healey or Dawson at scrum-half? And above all others, can Henry stitch it all together?

Just under six weeks ago when the party was unveiled, Henry told the story of how he was initially approached by Lenihan about the coaching job. «We met in Dublin on June 8 last year,» Henry said, «which is a very special day because it’s my birthday. And the first game of the tour is on June 8. We got it changed. You know that, don’t you?»

The smile revealed that he knew we knew there were more prosaic reasons for altering the date of the opening fixture. But the smile also hinted that, if Henry had really wanted to kick off the tour on his 55th birthday, he might have been able to swing things his way.

He’ll need all of that influence in the weeks to come. Lions to conquer, two Tests to one.