Rugby-Fewer players and more fun is recipe for Lions success

LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) - The 2009 British and Irish Lions will travel to South Africa with around 35 players and limited support staff as coach Ian McGeechan bids to instil his ethos that everyone has a real chance of making the test team.

McGeechan, who was unveiled on Wednesday as head coach for the fourth time and his seventh Lions tour in all, said he felt it was essential to scale down the party after the last two bloated and unsuccessful trips when 51 players went to New Zealand in 2005 and more than 40 to Australia four years earlier.

"I would like to be involved with the players, hands on, daily," McGeechan told a news conference on Wednesday.

"I want the same coaching team on the field every day with the same group of players and that gives you the chance to develop things quickly," added the Scot, who helped run the successful midweek team four years ago as Clive Woodward's first choice side were whitewashed.

McGeechan said there would be no repeat of the single-room scenario of 2005 nor, he hoped, of the siege mentality that kept the tourists separate from the media and fans.

"The best hotel set-up is doors open, players in and out just chatting," he said. "I've had a fantastic experience as a person with the Lions as well as a coach and a player and what give me most satisfaction is trying to ensure that the next group get as much or more out of it as I have.

"We went out for a pint as a midweek group four years ago and maybe in 2009 we will go out as a whole group."

Tour manager Gerald Davies agreed that it was time to bring the fun back into what he described as "rugby's last great adventure".

BIG CHALLENGE

"I don't see that to be a winner you have to be a miserable person," he said. "I'd like it to be an enjoyable tour; our objective and focus is to win 10 games but I'd like to think that allied to that is good people coming together, as guests in a big rugby country.

"It's a big challenge yes but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable."

Davies said that he and McGeechan had agreed a target squad of 35 or 36 players with everyone challenging for a test place.

"You can't have players cast aside without that hope, they have to have a challenge," added the Welshman, who toured in 1968 and 1971.

"With just 10 matches everyone has to be given the chance to play."

McGeechan, whose Lions stewardship has been marked by the inclusion in tests of many unexpected names, agreed.

"The challenge is not to make decisions too quickly," he said. "Some players grow and look different in a Lions context, they find something different in themselves, while others drift out. We have to have the open mind to appreciate and recognise that.

"You put combinations together and you want to see players from different countries beside each other and you can only do that if they are given decent pitch time."

McGeechan said he and Davies would discuss their coaching assistants over the next few months but stressed that there was no short list at the moment and no decisions expected to be announced until the end of the European summer.

Both men said they were confident rugby authorities would sort out the potential fixture overlap that, under current schedules, could see the tour party setting off before the Heineken Cup and Premiership finals have been played.

(Editing by Miles Evans)