Jo Yapp has made one principle clear before she names a single player for the first women's British & Irish Lions tour: selection will be ruthlessly merit-based, even if that tilts the squad heavily towards England.
Appointed last month as head coach for the inaugural three-Test series against New Zealand in September 2027, Yapp inherits a balancing act. The Red Roses have won 38 Tests in a row and have not lost to Scotland, Wales or Ireland since 2015, which makes English dominance the obvious starting point. Yapp insists that record will not buy anyone a seat on the plane.
"Ultimately, when it comes to the Lions, it's about picking the best players," Yapp told BBC Sport. "That is absolutely key - if you're a Lion, you want to know that you deserve to be a Lion."
She is adamant the other three nations will force their way in. "The Lions is about picking the best players across all four unions. We cannot shy away from that, it's really important we do that," she told Sky Sports. "If you're on that tour, you want to know you are there you deserve to be there because you are the best player."
"England have obviously dominated but watching the Six Nations and the leagues, there are so many excellent, talented players across the other unions as well," she added. "Over the next 18 months, I am sure they will take the opportunity to express themselves and put their hands up."
Yapp also flagged a wider selection pool than a single season's form. "There's people coming back from pregnancies, from fitness, from injuries, so it's really important that we keep an open mind."
The former England captain, who won 70 caps and now leads the Rugby Football Union's women's pathway, has leaned on Andy Farrell's experience of guiding the men's Lions to a 2-1 series win in Australia in 2025. The compressed preparation window was Farrell's central warning.
"Andy was super open, which was really lovely," Yapp said. "One of the things he talked about is when you're pulling together your staff, you get the right people, people who you can trust and can work with. That's massively important."
"You have such a short runway in a lot of terms. You don't have a season to bed anything in. You need to be able to hit the ground running."
Lions chief executive Ben Calveley described Yapp as the unanimous choice from a seven-strong shortlist. "We had a really far and wide search, a really robust process with lots of competition," he said. "We were unanimous as a panel that Jo Yapp was the right person to lead the tour."
Calveley pointed beyond tactics to culture. "Maybe even more important than that was this focus on people, a real commitment to culture, on the importance of getting a group of players that maybe haven't played together before to come together and commit to a common goal and to each other."
The series opens against a Black Ferns XV on 4 September 2027, with the first Test at Auckland's Go Media Stadium on 11 September and the decider in Christchurch on 25 September. The fixtures will overlap with build-up to the men's World Cup in Australia, but Calveley is confident the tour will hold its own. Lions officials have committed to a women's tour every four years and expect the first edition to at least break even.
