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No easy way for our pride of Lions

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If ever you needed an example gaining rewards for hard work and overcoming setbacks, the six Tigers who will become Lions this summer provide it.

The Tig could not be more happy for our six of the best who will wear the red shirt of the British & Irish Lions in Australia next month.

Tom Youngs, Dan Cole, Geoff Parling, Tom Croft, Ben Youngs and Manu Tuilagi, take a bow.

The rest of us should pin their pictures up on the wall in front of any homework-shy kid or fair-weather training colleague and make them take note.

All gifted as rugby players, they’ve also put in the hard graft. And then grafted some more. Now they know it is worth it.

Cole has had to work his way past front-row legends Julian White and Martin Castrogiovanni to establish himself with Tigers. He has become the anchor of an England scrum and survived intact while faces have changed around him. He is a man who gets the basics right and just keeps getting better. He is obviously not shy of hard work and soaks up lessons from Cockerill, Chuter, Stankovich, Ayerza, Rowntree and others around him. Add the flanker’s instinct over the ball and he is two players in one.

Parling arrived at Leicester unheralded and had to overcome the normal competition for places at Welford Road and not just one but two serious knee injuries before he even got into an England set-up. He had to convince those on the outside two that the tall, wiry frame concealed enough of a dog to get the dirty work done on the pitch just as much as the aerial combat at the line-out. He has barely out a foot wrong since and never looks out of place in any rugby company.

Croft had the world at his feet as one of the leading back-row forwards of his generation but then suffered a terrifying injury which required the addition of metal pins to hold his neck together. He knows only too well that it could have been a lot worse too. Hard to believe it was 12 months ago when you see how he has returned to the top table.

Manu almost didn’t have a professional rugby career at Tigers after problems over his residency, but the relief was evident as he then burst on to the scene nationally and internationally and earned a World Cup spot in his infancy as a senior player. A plunge into Auckland Harbour aside, he has not wasted any time in establishing his credentials and is as valuable to Tigers at 21 as any of his older brothers.

The Youngs boys could not be more different in their rugby roles, but they share Tigers DNA and an identical enthusiasm for the game.

Ben was earmarked as a star right from the earliest days but has had some low points along the way but he is maturing with every big game and never shirks a challenge.

Tom made the international grade in junior rugby and sevens as a centre but then became a hooker. Body-shape and aggressive running were taken as standard but he has now added even more power, an incredible appetite for work around the field and the technique of the set-piece to an impressive natural armoury. Eight months ago he hadn’t started a Premiership game in the front row, now he has an England blazer and is going on tour with the Lions. Incredible.

They stand as a lesson to us all. Look and learn.