Brendan Fanning: 'It's going to be physical and it's going to be hostile'

In the summer of 2009, with all of 90 minutes of Test rugby under his belt, Keith Earls set off on the Lions tour to South Africa. He wasn't quite in the bolter class, but plenty of people would not have had him in their squad when the second-guessing game was being played in parlours all over Britain and Ireland.