Standby for one of the least significant lists of the winter. Sometime next week, the British & Irish Lions selectors will announce the names of between 60 and 70 players who they think will be in line for a place on this summer's tour of South Africa.

It's not particularly select – the size of this squad is so huge that they can pick at least four players in each position.

It's not particularly selective – those named on this long list do not necessarily have to either be playing well, or at all.

It is by no means definitive – the selectors have reserved for themselves the right to add players who show compelling form throughout the rest of the season, and to reject those who either don't shape up or break down.

And in the grand scheme of this season, which still has so much rugby in it, it's not that important at all.

The only minds likely to be concentrated by this list are South African ones.

For while putative Lions have the Six Nations and the business end of the three major club competitions – Heineken, Guinness Premiership and EDF Energy Cup – to focus on, the Springboks will only have Lions in their sights.

And if they needed any more motivation than the chance of a tilt at the team that only comes their way every 12 years, they only have to think back to the last time the Lions came calling – and upset the form book, the apple cart and all sorts of Springbok rugby myths as they raced to a series victory with a match to spare.

Then, as now, they were the reigning world champions. Then, as now, they had changed their coach. In 1997, Carel du Plessis was at the beginning of his inauspicious succession to the World Cup-winning Kitch Christie. In 2009, Pieter de Villiers is the slightly less controversial successor to Jake White.

Then, as now, many senior Springboks were delaying their retirement for the chance of a once-in-a-lifetime tilt at the legendary touring team.

This, though, will be a mighty different proposition for the Lions. In 1997, the game was just feeling its way towards professionalism and the Springbok ranks had been split not just by the loss of their charismatic coach but also by the bloodletting that followed the repulsion of a breakaway organisation, the World Rugby Corporation, intent on hijacking the global game.

But, while the Springboks seemed mesmerised by the money that would be theirs when the game went professional, the Lions – as much by luck as by judgement – were more concerned with the mind-set. The selection of four recent rugby league players – Allan Bateman, Alan Tait, John Bentley and Scott Quinnell – was a calculated reminder to their team-mates that in the days when a Lions tour could be described as "a cross between a prep school outing and a crusade" were over. The Lions of 1997 went to South Africa to do a job.

And they did it superbly. Very few gave them a chance going into the first test in Cape Town but a glorious dummy by scrum-half Matt Dawson propelled them to an unlikely victory, while a sterling defensive effort combined with the goal-kicking of Neil Jenkins and a rare drop goal from Jeremy Guscott in the second Test in Durban enabled them to steal the series.

That, though, was the last time the Lions won a series. In 2001, they were beaten only narrowly by Australia, but, in 2005, they were walloped by New Zealand. As the game has become more professional, more organised and more scientific, the chances of what is essentially a scratch side defeating a highly efficient, vastly more experienced, well-drilled international outfit have grown ever longer – particularly as the tours have got shorter.

But if anyone can do it, Ian McGeechan can. The Wasps director of rugby was coach to the winning Lions in Australia in 1989 and coached the winning Lions in South Africa in 1997.

At the start of that tour few would have bet that Tom Smith and Paul Wallace would be his props, or that Jeremy Davidson would get to partner Martin Johnson in the second row. Few would have wagered that Dawson would emerge at scrum-half or that Wales outside half Jenkins would play a starring role at full-back.

McGeechan and his fellow selectors will have even less time this summer to work their magic. Next week's list may give us an early steer as to their thinking.

But, then again, it may not.