Rugby/ First Test Preview: If this doesn't get you, your batteries need recharging. Let's first picture the scene (but overlook the Power of Four anthem. Aside from the cringe-inducing words, it's impossible for supporters to sing or chant along to. But then it's going to be fun).
There'll be the New Zealand anthem, all the more resonant of this country's true heritage with the initial Maori lyrics. Then most of all the haka:
Ka mate, Ka mate!
(It is death, it is death)
Ka ora, Ka ora!
(It is life, it is life)
The manically crazed faces of the All Blacks being faced down by the Lions.
Cue the din, the two biggest brands in global rugby lining up to go to war, the flashing lightbulbs as Daniel Carter or Stephen Jones or Jonny Wilkinson lines up the kick-off. Rarely will there be such spine-shivering expectation.
Twelve years since they last met, after a year or more of heightened anticipation and another three weeks of advertising, hype, phoney war, opinion and bull, if this comes remotely close to fulfilling its billing it'll be an epic.
And how can it not be, even if it becomes a taut, tryless, tactical battle? Nothing has changed the feeling in one's bones that the Lions have to win this first Test if they are to win the series, as was the case in South Africa eight years ago and in Australia four years ago, when they were leading one-and-a-half Tests into the series.
There's logic behind this theory. The All Blacks, as with the home side then, are a little underdone. After the Super 12s, a 91-0 thrashing of Fiji can't have remotely prepared them for the intensity of a high-pressure Test.
Aside from history (the Lions have won just six of 35 meetings), the basis of the All Blacks' favouritism dates back to November and the oft-cited 45-6 thrashing of France. However, not only are the All Blacks unlikely to pick up where they left off fully seven months on, but one-third of their team has changed since and not obviously for the better.
Coach Graham Henry would have wanted experienced campaigners like Anton Oliver at hooker rather than the pace and ball-carrying but wobbly throwing of Keven Mealamu, and maybe lock Norm Maxwell too.
Opting for experience in Justin Marshall at scrumhalf looks justified, given his physicality for the warfare around the fringes, but Byron Kelleher was superb in Paris, and the recall of the accomplished but more prosaic Leon MacDonald at fullback for Mils Muliaina, with the ultimate impact replacement, Ma'a Nonu, surprisingly missing out altogether, would seem to have dulled their cutting edge.
They just might not be all they are cracked up to be. Paris showed us what we already knew and what the All Blacks have been for years: brilliantly ruthless in pressing home an advantage when getting a few points ahead.
However, when the pressure has come on in big, tight games, such as World Cup semi-finals or TriNations deciders, they have frequently buckled, beginning in the lineout, and including an inability to come up with a Plan B when the high-tempo, wide-running game doesn't work.
It's not just idle words with which Clive Woodward has been pressing home that mantra all week. The Lions' selection suggests their entire game is going to be about applying pressure, and then more pressure, and then some more, with a kicking game, a big defensive game and a close-in, driving, mauling game.
As Mike Ford has intimated, they might take a leaf out of the Australian and Springbok manuals, which have so rattled All Blacks sides in the past by varying their defensive line speed and pushing up quickly. It's why the trusted Neil Back and Wilkinson are there, and not Gavin Henson, and why the physically tough Josh Lewsey and Gareth Thomas are on the wings, with Jason Robinson at fullback in his least effective role going forward.
Where the Lions might come off worse is in the breakdown area, or more specifically the one-on-one collisions that now dictate so much of what follows.
In many positions where the All Blacks have ball carriers who can take a step and either attack the shoulder or beat the tackle - Mealamu, the backrow of Jerry Collins, Rodney So'oialo and Richie McCaw, or outhalf Dan Carter - the Lions look comparatively ponderous.
Even without Joe Rokocoko, even with Muliaina demoted to the bench and Nonu not around to lend an impact, the All Blacks appear to have the greater matchwinners on the wings: the rejuvenated Doug Howlett and elusive Sitiveni Sivivatu.
But they may be in for a surprise. They will surely improve as the series moves on and they gather momentum, whereas the Lions probably need a win to sustain them.
Bearing in mind they have never won back-to-back Tests in New Zealand, it would be some ask for the Lions to come back from one-nil down.
By picking Shane Byrne as hooker and Ben Kay at lock the Lions have emphasised the greater importance of the lineout, probably as a launch pad for their maul, which could be a trump card.
All the while there remains the nagging suspicion that Woodward is somehow destined to win this match, and maybe even the series, to follow up his World Cup triumph, for his detailed planning has certainly delivered a fresh, well-prepared team.
Yet you harbour reservations about the Lions on a number of points. Kicking in behind the wingers out of hand no longer seems to be in Wilkinson's repertoire (he doesn't spiral the ball anymore, and the punt down the middle, which none of the other Lions kickers are using, looks a percentage fallback), while it was never the best aspect of Stephen Jones's game.
In the heel of the hunt, the English team Woodward has drawn on peaked before the last World Cup. It's two years older.
Wilkinson, Robinson, Richard Hill, Neil Back and Will Greenwood, to name but five, cannot have been picked on form and cannot be sure to scale those heights again. Most of all, it is still hard to imagine that losing Lawrence Dallaglio wasn't a fatal blow, and without Martin Johnson as well the Woodward formula could yet be a dog-eared script that has lost its punch.
Jonny's famous boot, the pressure defence and the lineout maul may well be enough to win a tight, high-pressure Test game in the Canterbury rain, but outside of that where are the points going to come from? Little about the backline, including an out-of-touch Robinson, suggests it is designed to create and finish.
Yet, if the Lions get an early lead and maintain their pressure game, then the All Blacks could buckle and be compelled to regroup rapidly in Wellington next week.
Which would also be best for the series.
Head-to-head: Played 35, New Zealand 26 wins, 3 draws, Lions 6 wins.
In Christchurch: Played 8, New Zealand 7 wins, Lions 1 win.
Biggest victory margins and most points scored: New Zealand: 38-6, Auckland 1983. Lions: 20-7, Wellington 1993.
Most tries scored: New Zealand: 9 (29-0, Auckland, 1908). Lions: 4 (17-18, Dunedin 1959).
Most points scored by individuals: New Zealand: 18 (Don Clarke 1959, Allan Hewson 1983). Lions: 18 (Gavin Hastings 1993).
Most tries scored by individuals: New Zealand: 3 (Frank Mitchinson 1908, Stu Wilson 1983). Lions: 2 (Carl Aarvold 1930, Malcolm Price 1959, Gerald Davies 1971).
Odds (Paddy Power): 2/7 New Zealand, 20/1 Draw, 5/2 Lions. Handicap odds (= Lions +9pts) 10/11 New Zealand, 16/1 Draw, 10/11 Lions.
Forecast: All Blacks to win.
