WALES have gone, the Lions are just days away - we're all set for a feast of rugby this summer.

It's 12 months a year now and even if it's all happening on the other side of the world, the globe is a small place these days.

Around 15,000 of us are jetting out from Britain to Australia to see if the Lions can emulate the feat of 1997 when their immediate predecessors won the series in South Africa.

They clinched the series on a balmy unforgettable night in Durban, and will be out to follow suit by striking hard straightaway and winning the first two Tests in Brisbane and Melbourne.

That, just as in South Africa, will make the third Test redundant.

Neil Jenkins for one believes the Lions will do just that.

Australia will have something to say about that, of course.

They are still smarting from their defeat 12 years ago when David Campese made that now celebrated blunder to present Ieuan Evans with a try and the Lions with the series.

Since then Australia have recovered so well that they have become the only nation to win the World Cup twice.

And they are in good heart right now after ACT Brumbies became the first non-New Zealand team to win the Super 12 competition at the weekend when they hammered Natal Sharks.

Victory over the Lions would bring the curtain down on a glittering career for Aussie coach Rod Macqueen after guiding the Wallabies to World Cup and Tri Nations successes.

The psychological warfare has begun already with the irrepressible Campese warning that the Lions will make it a dirty game up front as they launch a full, frontal assault.

And the normally confident Australians confess to a certain apprehension about a lack of strength in depth in certain key positions.

They're worried about what could happen if outside half Stephen Larkham and lock John Eales suffer injuries.

So it really is vital the Lions hit the ground running and the likes of Martin Johnson show their power from the off, always assuming they can muster the energy at the end of a long, hard season here.

That could be the major worry for the Lions on the hard grounds of Eastern Australia.

Major interest will surround the game plan the Lions adopt under coach Graham Henry.

Presumably with the highly successful England team providing the bulk of the party, the Lions will play a quick, free flowing game, or will they?

Henry has been rather conservative with Wales, and there could even be a conflict of interest.

The bulk of the back room staff are English as well, so will Henry go along with their ideas or will he try to inflict his own beliefs? Very interesting.

Not so far away in Japan, Wales will try to unearth a nucleus of players who will form the squad for the 2003 World Cup.

They've made a good start with the emergence of Gavin Henson, a real star of the future.

And surely Shane Williams has got to feature heavily in the autumn internationals after being neglected in the Six Nations Championship.

And therein could lie future conflict with three autumn games already extended to a fourth with the left over Ireland clash and a likely warm-up against Romania for good measure in September.

Now that the leading players have signed up for the new players' association the WRU will have to ask the clubs to release them, and if it is considered there are too many international commitments they won't oblige.

Sorting that one out could be fun, but that's for the future. For now it's life with the Lions.