Lions tour the prize but first comes treadmill even robots would find wearing | Robert Kitson

Premiership and Pro12 will again provide a feast but asking players to give their all right up to a week before a Lions tour is an insult and does little to deflect the nagging fear player wellbeing still involves a touch of Russian rouletteNo other sport kicks off a new season with more tangled emotions than rugby union. Charles Dickens would have appreciated the continuing dilemma; the best of times mixed in with the worst, a supposed age of wisdom shackled by scheduling foolishness. When the British & Irish Lions belatedly stumble from the treadmill next July it will have been yet anoth…