Another Guinness Premiership season is just about to start and I have no doubt that it will be as tough and thrilling as ever. But like many coaches, players and fans, I find myself thinking much too far ahead and wondering who will claim a place on the list of players who will be flying to South Africa in May.

Next summer will be my third Lions tour. I know what you are thinking: what is the crazy Frenchman talking about? The Lions tour is for British and Irish people. Poor Philippe has scrambled his brains from drinking too much wine this summer (it certainly wasn’t from too much sun) if he thinks the Lions tour has anything to do with him.

But as someone who has been a player and a coach in this country since the mid-1990s, it is hard not to be aware of the excitement that comes along once every four years, when English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish players and fans forget that they dislike each other and unite behind the men in red shirts, white shorts and blue and green socks.

When I was young, I did not understand the importance of the Lions. If the matches were on television, then it was only as a small mention on the news. We were more concerned with how France were doing on their own summer tours.

The first Lions tour I remember was in 1997 at the end of my first season with Gloucester. Everyone was excited about the first Lions tour to South Africa for 17 years and although none of my team-mates were selected, I knew a lot of the Lions squad, such as Tony Underwood, Gregor Townsend and Neil Jenkins, and was interested to see these international rivals play together. Ian McGeechan, the coach, united these different nationalities into a strong squad under Martin Johnson’s captaincy. They won the series against South Africa 2-1 and the memory that sticks in my mind is of Jeremy Guscott’s late dropped goal to win the second international in Durban. Guscott wasn’t known as a kicker but he was the right man in the right place at the right time.

It reminded me of my one and only dropped goal, when I received the ball 40 metres out and was so knackered I couldn’t sprint any more, so I just kicked it more in hope than expectation. It went over but I never tried to do it again.

South Africa were furious about losing to the Lions — and we bore the brunt of it that autumn when they beat France 36-32, appropriately in Lyons, and then walloped us 52-10 in Paris. It was my final game for France, so thanks a bunch for winding them up, Jeremy!

In 2001, when the Lions went to Australia, I was back in France coaching Bourgoin, so the tour didn’t catch my attention, but four years later, in my first season with Sale Sharks, it was hard not to be aware of the importance of the Lions. It is such a big part of the culture and history of rugby in Great Britain and Ireland. When you speak to the players, you realise how important the Lions tour is to them. Some of my Sale squad were not household names at the start of the 2004-05 season, but I said to them that this was their chance to become famous. “If you play well and Sale does well then you will be put in the spotlight,” I said.

And it came true. Sale won the European Challenge Cup and along with Jason Robinson, Sale’s most famous player, several of his less well-known team-mates were also given a plane ticket to New Zealand: Charlie Hodgson, Andrew Sheridan, Mark Cueto, Jason White and Andy Titterrell. This year the message is the same: succeed for your club and Lions honours will follow.

It is very hard to say at this stage who will be in the Lions party. People get injured and form comes and goes. Some players will burst on to the stage, others will fade and there will be some surprises. The important thing for McGeechan as team coach once more is to blend different personalities and nationalities into one team. That may not mean that the men who will beat the Springboks are the best XV in the Premiership: you can put out a dream team but sometimes you need men to carry the piano and others to play it.

For me, who will play at scrum half is one of the most interesting questions. There are so many great candidates: Dwayne Peel has moved to the Premiership in the hope that the extra competition will win him back his Wales place from Mike Phillips, Mike Blair, from Scotland, will make a strong case as will Eoin Reddan, of Wasps and Ireland, and there are four or five Englishmen who will be hoping to get picked.

The selection of the captain will be fascinating. He needs to command total respect from team-mates who may have spent years on the international stage trying to break his arm. Look at the list of former Lions captains and you will recognise some of the hardest guys to have played rugby: names like Johnson, Calder, Bennett or McBride. Next summer’s captain needs to be a tough cookie.