The unadulterated joy of picking the Lions Test team has normally cooled a bit by now. However, that does not seem to have happened this time round. The opposite has occurred, indeed it seems we are sweeping towards the second Lions Test with the selection debate raging even louder.

Two points

1) If Ian McGeechan and the Lions brains trust get it right this weekend, then it will be an act of coaching – or more to the point – selectorial brilliance. Yes, yes, we can all see where improvements can be made. Thank you Doctor Watson. But how many? Which brings me on to 2).

2) One of the many joys of that Durban weekend was the car-park action afterward the game. Many thanks to my mate’s Aunty Judy for a spread which put the hampers back at Twickenham to shame. My cousin’s mates were entertaining royally too until they made the apparently controversial decision to leave marginally within four hours of the final whistle. Aunty Judy didn’t. Indeed she saw me off, though when the beer ran dry and it became a toss-up between alcopops or Scotch, the decision in favour of self-preservation became a no-brainer. But what the car-park did throw up, apart from the stone-the-crows conclusion that South Africans don’t all gloat as offensively in victory as preconception had suggested, were arguments in favour of changes in over half the starting positions in the team.

The next day, eight possible changes still seemed somehow not unreasonable. I am not suggesting there should be eight changes. Not at all. But you can make a reasonable case for eight amendments to the starting line-up.

You know them all already but, in order of likelihood: 1) Adam Jones for Phil Vickery. 2) Matthew Rees for Lee Mears. 3) Rob Kearney for Lee Byrne (though factor in injury uncertainty here). 4) Ugo Monye out and any of Shane Williams, Luke Fitzgerald or Rob Kearney in his stead. 5) Alun-Wyn Jones out, Simon Shaw in. 6) Stephen Jones out, James Hook in. Ronan O’Gara? Now a very long shot as he is playing and captaining today. 7) David Wallace out, Martyn Williams in. 8) Paul O’Connell out, Simon Shaw in.

Point of notice: O’Connell’s omission is by far the least likely of the eight because of the whole captaincy issue. Though if it is possible to generalise a view of the wider rugby public, he shouldn’t be batting eighth on this list, more like three or four.

But of those eight, not one would be remotely strange or inexplicable. There is a reasonable case for every one.

Which brings us to McGeechan and the selectors’ wisdom. They have to find a balance between two opposing lines of thought. They want to make improvements, but they will simultaneously value continuity. They know that changes have to be made, but they know that the team will improve gradually by simply having more gametime as a unit. At what stage do the benefits of individual changes outweigh the negatives of playing the tinkerman?

Just for the record, Sir Clive Woodward made a whopping seven personnel and three positional changes between Tests one and two in New Zealand four years ago. Two of those were forced upon him: the (not insignificant) injuries to Brian O’Driscoll and Richard Hill. Also for the record, the scoreline was worse after the second Test than the first. And, in mitigation, while there seemed plenty of madness about Woodward’s first Test team before they took the pitch, there were few dissenting voices over the side that McGeechan picked to start last Saturday.

But he is going to make changes. We know that. The question is where the changes will end. Because with a game that is so monstrously large, he cannot afford to be too conservative. And yet he could shoot himself in the foot by taking the liberal approach.

I think he will steer a course through the middle. I think definitely three changes, maybe four.

I also think that the fact that so much is still unresolved is proof once again that this tour is too short, that the preparation games were insufficient both in their numbers and their quality. I feel for McGeechan and the whole squad in that respect. Yet that is wasted sympathy. Some massive decisions have to be made. We watch with huge interest.

The straight man cometh

Poor Luke Fitzgerald. Hasn’t had the easiest of tours. Far from it. And now he personally is missing Euan Murray, the injured Scot, more than anyone. Which is saying a lot because a fit Murray would, right now, be an exceedingly popular man.

It so befell Fitzgerald and Murray that they found themselves as the touring squad's official jokesmiths. Murray probably found that easier to handle than Fitzgerald, but he is now gone. And Fitzgerald is feeling a trifle concerned.

A genuinely amusing presence, it seems, is Andy Powell who is the tour’s official MC when on the bus. His, it seems, is a decent warm-up act before he would give way to the Chuckle Brothers who had to make their way to the front of the bus to tell a joke. Except Fitzgerald didn’t take quite as well to the role as Murray.

Only now that Murray has gone have the limits to Fitzgerald’s repartee been so harshly exposed. He now Googles daily in the vain hope of comedic enlightenment; the reaction of his audience suggests that Google, for once, is not doing a very good job.