The First Test:

AS a British and Irish Lion you have to believe nothing is impossible – that whoever the opposition, the sum of your parts can add up to something extraordinary.

Take my first tour to South Africa in 1997. They were world champions, on paper bigger and better. In the flesh they were too. Stronger, more explosive, more talented.

In the cold light of day you thought, “How the hell are we going to beat them?” But we did. Tactically we got it spot on. We won the first Test and took the series.

Same again on my second tour, in Australia four years later. By then they were the world champs and, like the Kiwis now, assumed we could play only one way. Mistake.

We found a way to surprise them and again won the opener.

In Auckland today, the Lions must tap into this spirit, rather than dwell on what happened on my last tour, in New Zealand in 2005.

That was the first Test in which Brian O’Driscoll (right) and Richard Hill suffered tour-ending injuries. There was a rush of All Blacks’ pressure and tries, our heads went down, their chests puffed out, that was that.

It can happen in NZ if you lose concentration for a moment. No team turns defence into a try faster than the All Blacks. No team is harder to catch once they get away.

So the Lions must be on it from start to finish. The ABs get three points, they have to score next. Back to basics: keep hold of the pill, get in the right areas, stay on the right side of the ref.

Let the ABs get their tails up and they’re going to build on what they did last week against Samoa – 12 tries, 78 unanswered points.

But impose a completely different game on them – flawless set-piece, pressure on line-outs and kick-offs, suffocating defence and discipline – and it will feel a totally different ball game.

To do that will need 80 minutes concentrating for every second. It will test coach Warren Gatland (above) and his players mentally like they’ve never been tested before. Conor Murray has to play the game of his life. Keep the Lions going forward with on-the-money box kicking which enables the chasers to pin the All Blacks in their own half. Put them on the back foot and execute at the set-piece and the Lions are in a contest. Allow them to play, to roam through the phases looking for the mismatch and they won’t be. These Lions can become legends by winning today in a place where the All Blacks have not lost since 1994. And I think they can – by two points, seeing you ask. But nothing that notable comes without a fight. As somebody once said: ”This is your Everest, boys.”