WALES’ Lions have accepted the responsibility to lay the foundations for a successful series Down Under by taking the strain in training.

Warren Gatland’s 37-man squad has been depleted ahead of the tour to Australia with a raft of players still on club duty.

Leinster, Ulster, Leicester and Northampton don’t finish their seasons until Saturday’s RaboDirect Pro12 and Aviva Premiership finals.

That means that the British and Irish Lions’ training – which took place at the Vale of Glamorgan last week and moved to Dublin yesterday – has been disrupted.

And captain Sam Warburton has called on his 14 fellow Welshmen, who are familiar with the workings of coaches Gatland, Rob Howley and Neil Jenkins, to take the strain.

“There is a large Welsh contingent here and we have to drive training because there are a lot of similarities with what we do with Wales,” said captain Sam Warburton.

“There is a lot of onus on the players off the pitch to do our analysis and make sure we know the calls, that’s the easy stuff, sitting down doing your homework on a laptop so that you can hit the ground running in training.”

Lock Alun Wyn Jones is at the heart of such preparations given the complexities of life as a tight five forward.

“It’s not ideal for all those boys to be absent but we’ve got to make sure that the ones that are here get up to speed so that we are able to quickly share the knowledge with them,” said the Ospreys captain.

“Our preparation is in its infancy but it has been a good start and we are getting the foundations of the rugby in.

“We had a game of touch that was a bit tasty, the quickest game of touch I’ve played in a long time! The boys were blowing but that’s a good thing.

“There is a lot of enthusiasm and it probably wouldn’t be that intense on a Tuesday or Wednesday in the middle of a tour.

“I suppose it’s Catch-22, the boys that are playing (for Leinster, Ulster, Leicester and Northampton) will be match-ready when they join us while the rest of us are getting good preparation but are not playing.

“But everyone will have opportunities in the first three games of the tour and then we will see where we are as individuals and as a squad.”

The Lions spend this week in Dublin before heading to London for Monday’s flight to Hong Kong for the June 1 Test against the Barbarians.