It began with arguably the best opening weekend in Six Nations Championship history and ended with one of rugby's greatest occasions.

In between times, some would have you believe that it was a disappointing tournament, but not this observer.

Sure, there are issues to be addressed, as demonstrated in the Scotland v Wales match which set all sorts of records of the wrong kind for penalty awards and scores, in turn inducing allegations of what might be described as the wrong kind of cheating.

However, this was also a Six Nations in which Scotland and Italy were expected to lose all four of the matches they won between them, while France and Ireland were expected to win at least six of the eight matches they failed to win between them.

That the French finished bottom of the table when all logic, as far as it can ever be applied to French rugby, suggested that they had to be favourites on the basis of their autumn form, while Ireland also looked, back in November, set to be challenging for the title rather than avoiding the wooden spoon, said everything that need be about the wonderfully unpredictable nature of this tournament.

So, too, did the fact that, statistically, the French team still contained the single best player in the competition, Louis Picamoles assuming Sergio Parisse's regular status as a near peerless player in a losing team.

All of that in a Lions year and what a task they have left for Warren Gatland and his management team who are seeking to select the best 37 players from the British Isles to tour Australia this summer.

The New Zealander – who has been given a sabbatical from coaching Wales, having twice led them to grand slams in the four years that preceded this year's championship in which they rose from being dead and buried at half-time in their opening match against Ireland to demolish previous unbeaten England – has a near impossible task in political terms.

As we sat on the Paris Metro on Sunday morning, post-tournament wash-up press conferences just completed, I raised this issue with a couple of colleagues and selected what I believed would be his Test team if he was picking it for the following weekend. It contained the entire Welsh back three and front-row that played on Saturday, as well as one of their locks, a half-back and a midfielder.

In the back-row, the main challengers to the trio that tormented Chris Robshaw – prior to Saturday he was a tournament-long favourite for the Lions captaincy – and his colleagues, would also be Welsh.

After all, Ryan Jones, a former grand slam-winning captain, was considered to be in the form of his life as he led the side once more before succumbing to injury midway through the championship, while Dan Lydiate, who is on the road to recovery from the injury that prevented him taking part, was the player of last season's RBS 6 Nations when Wales won their third grand slam in eight years.

Other than Jones and Lydiate, those I left out of my projected Test team included Jonathan Davies, a superb centre whose misfortune it is to play the same position as Brian O'Driscoll.

A powerful case could also be made for James Hook, one of the most gifted and versatile backs in the sport, to tour as he did four years ago, as it could for either Andrew Coombes or Ian Evans who formed a fine second-row partnership before Alun Wyn Jones recovered from injury to storm back into the frame.

If Hook is seen as a utility back, stand-off is the only specialist position – Ireland's Jonny Sexton remains a near-certain Test starter if fit, while Englishmen Owen Farrell and Toby Flood are also strong contenders – at which my Lions tour party would not include a representative from the nation that once considered itself to have the world's greatest production line of stand-offs.

In all, then, a powerful case can be made for at least 19 Welshmen switching the logo on their red jerseys from the Prince of Wales feathers to the Lions coats of arms.

Lions selection carries with it all sorts of different elements, though, with so many lobbies at play.

The implications for Gatland of picking a Test team containing as many as a dozen Welshmen and then failing to win the series do not bear thinking about in terms of the likely reaction of the English and Irish media.

On the other hand, should he leave behind any of those Welsh players and fails to win the series, he may find that the atmosphere has turned terminally against him if and when he returns to his former job.

The easy solution is, of course, to win the series and then any criticism can be rejected.

Personally, I believe that to be easier for this Lions party than for any in the 16 years since the tourists last came home as winners and perhaps even since the Lions last beat the Wallabies in 1989.

Both those winning series were by hard-fought 2-1 margins, though, demonstrating just how difficult the Lions invariably make things for themselves.

Saying all of which, the Lions remains an over-hyped, money-making circus which, in sporting competitive terms, will never have the credibility of the oldest international championship that never fails to shock and enthral.