During the week we saw just how huge the gulf is between the traditions of rugby and the professional game.
The Lions head coach, Warren Gatland, ventured into highly dangerous territory when he suggested that Premiership players might ask their clubs to be released early, so they can be considered for the Lions' warm-up game against Japan. Let's hope the England players ignore his not-so-lightly veiled threat and simply call his bluff.
For me the Lions are a bit of an enigma: like many of my generation I remember listening to their Tests on the radio, and then a few days later the reels of film would arrive and the BBC would show the games in black and white! Then we got live television coverage and the excitement ramped up even more. Of course club rugby was still an amateur game, and the Five Nations, as it was then, was almost the only live rugby we got to see. It was a very different rugby world.
Some people still see the Lions as the pinnacle of British and Irish rugby, but I no longer do. In a crowded calendar there simply isn't enough room for them to be the pre-eminent force they once were, and their management are living in the past when they continue to regard themselves in that way.
They have arranged a warm-up fixture against Japan, to be played at Murrayfield on the same day as the Premiership final – it's hard to imagine a more provocative and ill-judged decision.
It summarises the archaic attitude that their management has – ‘we are the Lions and the rugby world revolves around us'. It takes time for change to be accepted and my generation, by and large, still has an emotional attachment to the Lions, but I wonder how much longer that can be sustained?
What is the rationale for sending a scratch team chosen from the four nations to South Africa? Just think it through: the best club sides in Europe are made up of international- standard players, and coached by some of the best in the world – how many national coaches are better than the likes of Rob Baxter and Mark McCall? It'll never happen, but I bet you that the European champions would give any of the Six Nations teams a good run for their money.
If that is the case, then cobbling together a team from four rugby nations has to be even more challenging.
The conventional wisdom is that a Lions jersey is the pinnacle of a player's career, and I have no doubt it is still regarded as a great honour, but does it count for more than a Premiership or Champions Cup winner's medal? Those are won with their mates and if a large part of rugby is camaraderie, then those trophies are the most important ones.
In the olden days the Lions players were away for months – even as recently as 1959 they played 35 games – that's more than one and a half Premiership campaigns!
Nowadays they're in and out in five weeks, so they're never going to jell in the way they used to. If the Lions go to South Africa it will make for good television, generate a lot of money, and provide a great rugby holiday for the thousands that follow them out there, but will it be the pinnacle of the rugby year? With their eight-game mini-tour, I really don't think so.
In the wake of Exeter's outstanding double, Tony Rowe spoke out about the conflicts between club and country, specifically about having to release players for increasing numbers of international fixtures.
Those are concerns that have been voiced in the past, although I don't recall Rowe coming out in support of Leicester Tigers or Saracens when they were contributing plenty of home-grown players to England! Predictably his comments polarised opinion. For those of us who are club rugby devotees his words struck a chord, but there are plenty of rugby fans out there for whom England's performances are what matters most, and they took issue with his words and the tone.
While congratulating Exeter on their great season, maybe Rowe would do well to take a cautious view. He talked about Exeter becoming the best club team in the world, and who knows, they might achieve that, but there's also an old saying, ‘up like a rocket, down like a stick!' Sport can be a funny business, and humility is a virtue!
