"We had a long and lively debate about hookers and Dylan Hartley has done a great job for England in terms of competitiveness and leadership".
Yet there are some significant absentees, the most notable of which sees their captain Hartley overlooked in favour of his global understudy Jamie George, who travels as one of three hookers alongside Rory Best and Ken Owens despite never having started a Test.
"I would expect we will get a pretty similar style of play to what we have always got when we have played a Warren Gatland coached team".
"He'll have an England tour to Argentina to work towards. Here's hoping that we can play together".
If there was heartache for Hartley, there was set to be uproar in Scotland.
Despite winning three games in the Six Nations for their performance in more than a decade and moving up to fifth in the world rankings, the Scots had only two representatives in the Lions squad - fullback Stuart Hogg and winger Tommy Seymour.
There was no Scottish forward in a touring party for first time since 1908.
"Andy Farrell being a coach with England and Ireland, the Ireland players having won and some of the England players having won in 2012. you've got to go there believing".
Borthwick added: "Throughout the whole squad there are going to be top quality players who missed out on selection because the talent is that great now".
The theme of continuity extended to Gatland's choice of captain.
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Hansen said the side will head to New Zealand with huge expectations to win, given the recent success of England, and the series win against Australia four years ago.
Lions tour manager John Spencer will announce the squad, being joined by Gatland, his coaching staff and captain, who is expected to be Wales flanker Sam Warburton, at a hotel on the edge of the 200-acre Syon House Estate in west London.
Gatland, once more on secondment from his role as Wales coach, has again appointed Sam Warburton, the Lions captain in Australia, as his skipper.
"It hasn't sunk in yet, I'm just a bit speechless", he said.
"I think the fact that me and Tommy are going is down to our team-mates, whether that's at Glasgow or Scotland", Hogg said yesterday.
He and the coaches are likely to be further handicapped by the lack of preparation time, with the Pro12 and Premiership finals taking place two days before the squad departs for New Zealand on May 29th and one week before playing a Provincial Barbarians XV in Whangarei.
Wales finished fifth in this year's Six Nations, below England, Ireland and Scotland.
The omissions were just as noteworthy, with England captain Dylan Hartley among the famous names not to be selected as well as fellow Six Nations winners Joe Launchbury and Mike Brown. Launchbury was particularly unlucky to miss out, with Lions especially strong in the second row with Maro Itoje, Alun Wyn Jones, Courtney Lawes, George Kruis and Iain Henderson. 2013 (winning tour) was fantastic, it was all fresh, it was all new.
The squad is only three fewer than Clive Woodward took on the ill-fated 2005 New Zealand campaign. "Probably the hardest one we've had".
"People talked about him as a possible Lions captain and then for him not to make the squad".
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