ASSEMBLE a squad of players from scratch, work with them for a few weeks, then take on one of the greatest teams in the world in a best-of-three series.

It sounds like the sort of fool’s errand that would be turned into a reality TV show these days, but it is in fact the formula that the British & Irish Lions have worked with since they first left our shores back in 1888.

This year, as in their two previous visits to South Africa in 1997 and 2009, the Lions are playing a Springboks side who are the reigning world champions.

That makes the scale of the challenge sound all the more daunting, but there are several reasons why Warren Gatland’s team should approach the first Test in Cape Town in an optimistic frame of mind.

Paradoxically, of the six games that the tourists have played up to this point, they can take most heart from the one they lost. In terms of the result, the 17-13 defeat by South Africa ‘A’ was a blow to morale.

But certain aspects of the game were highly encouraging, above all the set scrum, and if the Lions can maintain their edge there while tidying up their game in other respects, they will give themselves the best possible platform on which to construct a victory.

That South Africa ‘A’ team was a full Test side in all but name, and Lions assistant coach Robin McBryde, for one, is convinced his side struck an important blow in that game by getting on top up front.

“It’s an area of the game that they pride themselves on,” the Welshman said of the South Africans. “I’m sure they’ll be frustrated from that ‘A’ game that they didn’t get any advantage, really, from a mauling point of view. They didn’t get anything out of the scrums. 

“We can take a lot of positives from that ‘A’ game, but I’m expecting them to come harder again in the same areas, and if anything that will make them a little bit hungrier. They’ll rise to the challenge. We do know that there’s another level in the Springboks - but there’s another level in us as well.”

The other area of that game in which the Lions were superior was stamina. Yes, the South Africans dug deep in defence to hold on for the win, but more judicious decision-making by the tourists would surely have paid dividends.

Ten days on, both sides will have been able to work on their match fitness, but both have also had their preparations disrupted by positive Covid tests, so it would be no surprise if durability again became a major issue.

And when we talk about durability, of course, it refers to a squad as a whole, not merely to the capacity of any individual in particular to last 80 minutes.

During the 2019 World Cup, the Springboks developed a strategy of bringing some of their most powerful forwards off the bench late in the game as the opposition tired. The Bomb Squad, they called it, and it ensured that they had an explosive power up front throughout a match.

There is a slight difference this time in that the home side only have five forwards on the bench rather than six, a factor that will surely weaken their impact. Perhaps more importantly, the Lions are convinced that they have the greater strength in depth in any case, and that their replacement forwards - Scotland’s Rory Sutherland and Hamish Watson among them - can nullify the threat from the Boks’ bench.

As for the Scots who start, Stuart Hogg and Duhan van der Merwe will have to deal with an aerial bombardment, while the latter will also have his hands full trying to stop Cheslin Kolbe. Ali Price, meanwhile, must keep up the slick service to his outside backs that has won him the No 9 jersey for this game.

It promises to be a close contest, and you can only hope that if it is settled by a single score, it will come from a piece of brilliance rather than a horrendous mistake.

It must also be hoped that if any such mistake does arise it will be committed by a player not a match official, and in that regard it is easy to sympathise with the Lions’ disgruntlement at the late appointment of South African Marius Jonker as the Television Match Official in place of a New Zealander who was unable to travel.

Given Kolbe’s ability to conjure up a try out of nothing, the Lions will not rest easy on a narrow lead, should they achieve one.

If they do get their noses in front, they will surely aim to keep up the pressure - and if they manage to do that consistently until the end of the contest, they will go one up in this engrossing series.