McGeechan

Well, it's May 1, 2009, and you know what that means! Not only is it time to weave your ceremonial flower baskets out of willow fibers and frolic flamboyantly around a May tree in spirited celebration of the social and economic achievements of the international labor movement, but we are exactly one month removed from the 2009 British and Irish Lions South Africa tour! Now you may ask, just what is a British and Irish Lion? Where do they come from and how do we keep them the heck away from us? Well, the Lions are a traveling rugby team founded in 1888, that is composed of the most competent athletes from the four British commonwealths: England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Lions assemble every four years and tour some hosting nation. I'm sure we're all still in awe over the monumental failure of the 2005 tour of New Zealand. Holy crap.

This tour, though in all likelihood, still destined to be a failure, will be nothing if not fun to watch. Some unexpected selections made by head coach Ian McGeechan have made this side an unintuitive mess of wackiness. At least, that is the opinion of South Africa's head coach, Peter de Villiers, whose commentary during the entire selection process has been really funny if not encouraging. Disappointingly for me, Jonny Wilkinson will not be traveling with the Lions this year, on account of he has once again been rendered mostly incapable of locomotion. But on the top side of things, I really like the guy they picked for team captain: Munster's own Paul O'Connell. It's going to be bucketfuls of cool.

Well, April didn't impress me. It was no May, that's for sure.

-Ryan