Quite often the composition of the standby squad is often as intriguing as the main squad. The standby squad was picked on the Wednesday after the main event and for obvious reasons it has not been published.

Obvious because some players who were supposed or expected to be in it won’t be and when that list is published and ‘Wazzard’ decides to pick someone from outside it – well, sometimes it’s better to say nothing at all.

Anyway, all the standby players will be told to follow a specific programme, stand by their phones and give their measurements etc etc.

My guess is that there will be about seven new players brought out even on this short tour. That does not include the players who get injured before they depart.

Whither Henry Slade?

I am sure most of you saw Slade decide that he did not fancy taking the Covid vaccine because, in an article published in the ‘Daily Telegraph’, he stated that “I don’t think you can trust it, can you?”

Now that is quite a statement to make and in a legally-drafted follow-up he recanted to a degree, where he said, “when the time comes for me to make an informed decision on whether or not I take up the option of having the vaccination, I will of course consider the thoughts of my family and friends, the latest Government advice, as well as all others around me”.

I’m not sure if Henry prepared the statement all on his own – what do you think?

Sometimes you do have to hold some players by the hand and spoon-feed them the right words to say. That is why most player interviews read like the terms and conditions of a Black & Decker drill. What was he thinking?

Slade is entitled to his own opinion. He also is entitled to express it. However, whether he likes it or not, as a well-known sporting figure it is unwise for him to make that sort of statement given the predicament the world is in and given where he is in his rugby career.

The fact that he also has type 1 diabetes and was, at the time of publication, opting not to get a jab even though he was at significant risk if he caught it beggars belief.

You might just google the risks of acquiring Covid if you have diabetes and the damage it can do even if you are fit and healthy.

When this pandemic is over the world might look at another pandemic – that of diabetes.

In America 35 million people have diabetes, 10.5pc of the population.

Each year 80,000 people die from the disease and a multiple of that die prematurely from complications or conditions relating to it. Those numbers are staggering.

The world underestimates this killer and Slade possibly does too.

If Slade is in a category for at-risk people maybe he is there for a reason.

If you choose not to take the vaccine should there be consequences?

Could there be a disclaimer to be signed to forego a ventilator or an ICU bed or medicines in the event of a person catching the disease and then ending up in hospital with a serious case of the virus?

Slade stated he was being tested on a regular basis but testing only tells you that you do or do not have it.

If you test positive, so will most of your team-mates – how on earth could he think that testing had some form of preventative properties or some kind of safety net? When you test positive it is too late.

Slade mentioned he had reacted badly to previous vaccines and that had made him wary of taking any more. Fair enough. I have reacted badly to jabs before too.

I was knocked sideways for about 10 days after getting a couple of vaccines in 1995 but I knew if I did not take them that I would not be going to the World Cup in South Africa. I did not think twice. World Cup or stay at home – or worse, World Cup and get sick.

The Lions’ travelling party met up last week for a huge amount of admin and pre-tour stuff.

The squad were all vaccinated – every last one of them.

It was a common refrain during World War 1 that there were no atheists in the trenches when there were live rounds being fired.

There would be no conscientious objectors or anti-vaxxers when the Lions were getting their jabs.

Vaccination, officially, was not mandatory, but I suspect that if one player held out for whatever reason that would be that.

The parlous state of finances in the home unions and in South Africa meant the tour was going ahead – no matter what.

The number that Sky paid for the rights was very generous indeed, and given the commercial opportunities that still existed it would have been commercial suicide not to travel.

On that basis, the care and stringent protocols employed to ensure that there would not be an outbreak within the touring group would have been draconian.

If one player tested positive, that could have put tens of millions of euro at risk.

If one player tested positive, he could put all his team-mates in mortal peril.

If one player tested positive, the most eagerly-awaited Test series against the world champions could be cancelled. Nobody wants that.

In life, sometimes you have choices. You can indeed choose not to take the vaccine when it is available to you.

There are 3.57 million people no longer on the planet who wished they had the option of a vaccine. None of them would refuse to take it because they didn’t fancy it.

Slade’s words and actions were certainly unthinking and not a little selfish.

How would he fit into the famous team ethic instilled in the Lions’ DNA?

“Eh, Henry we are all vaccinated – what about you, son?”

“Sorry, lads, I don’t fancy it!”

Slade referred to the emotional anguish and turmoil that his England team-mate Kyle Sinckler was enduring when he was another omission from the squad when many thought he was a cert to go.

If I were Slade and I still harboured thoughts of going to South Africa later in the tour I would go and have a jab straight away.

Officially the jab is not compulsory, but my guess is if you don’t have one you won’t be travelling anywhere. More anguish!