49 is a common number for you? Yeah, obviously for a test match you pick your best 32 from 50 on tour. That's not fair for the opposition.
Never has a Southern Hemisphere team on tour brought 49 players cause none have 49 international players like RFU, WRU, IRFU and SRU playing together. Let's be honest. That's the main strenght of Lions
I think conflating a 3-5 game tour spread across 3-5 weekends with a 10 game tour spread across 6 is deliberately disingenuous, and that's before you consider that it's closer to an extended Barbarians setup rather than a modified international one. In 2013, 6 players didn't join the tour until 2 or 3 days before the first game having played in the Premiership final: it would have been 7 had Dylan Hartley not been Dylan Hartley and if Genthin Jenkins had been fit, he wouldn't have been able to join the tour until after the first game had already been played.
And it's not fantasy football: you can't just throw the best XV/XXIII together and let them rip. Players have teammates and coaches they've never played with & under before: you need to be able to see who works with each other and who works in the system. Sexton and Tuipuloto for example may have anti-synergy, and one or the other may make way despite being number 1 across the available players for 10 & 12. Or Lowe and Hansen may be the best wing pair right now, but an alternately designed gameplan could see LRZ or VDM come in, or even a Blair Kinghorn. Hooker lacking synergy with his props for scrummaging and locks for throwing, backrows providing too much of a good thing etc. etc. etc.
As an aside, 59 players were selected across 8 games the Japan tour for the A squad and the EOYT comprised last year. It's obviously not 1 for 1 by any means, but you know, pare back the "true" development group from 12-15 to 2 or 3, play the games midweek instead: I would say that gives you 45-50 players needed to ensure you can see what each player has to offer and not grind your anticipated starters into the dirt, no?
I think there's been enough said about this in the wrong area, so I will drop any further discussion unless it's moved to the BILs tour thread.