Of the 37 Lions announced by chairman Andy Irvine, 24 have made it from the RaboDirect PRO12.
No fewer than eight of the 12 competing teams will be represented in Australia this summer. Leinster, double European Cup winners now through to their first Amlin Cup final, head the list followed by last year's Rabo champions, the Ospreys.
The complete break-down:
Leinster 6 (Rob Kearney, Brian O'Driscoll, Jonny Sexton, Cian Healy, Jamie Heaslip, Sean O'Brien).
Ospreys 5 (Adam Jones, Richard Hibbard, Ian Evans, Alun-Wyn Jones, Justin Tipuric)
Cardiff Blues 4 (Leigh Halfpenny, Alex Cuthbert, Jamie Roberts, Sam Warburton).
Glasgow Warriors 2 (Stuart Hogg, Sean Maitland).
Munster 2 (Conor Murray, Paul O'Connell)
Scarlets 2 (George North, Jonathan Davies).
Newport Gwent Dragons 2 (Toby Faletau, Danny Lydiate).
Ulster 1 (Tommy Bowe).
Warburton's elevation to the captaincy makes him the third player from the PRO12 to lead the Lions, following Paul O'Connell in South Africa in 2009 and Brian O'Driscoll in New Zealand four years before that.
The peerless O'Driscoll becomes the first of the professional era to make four Lions tours, this one in pursuit of his last great goal - a winning Test series.
The choice of Warburton above both his predecessors says everything about the Welshman who, at 24, becomes the youngest to skipper the Lions since the late Karl Mullen of Old Belvedere, Leinster and Ireland did so in 1950 at the age of 23.
Despite providing the Lions' share, the RaboDirect PRO12 still suffered a few casualties. Ulster hooker Rory Best, the Ospreys' multi-dimensional Ryan Jones, Munster wing Simon Zebo and lock Donnacha Ryan all contenders who missed the boat.
Jonny Wilkinson is another omission despite performing at Twickenham last Sunday as he used to in his England pomp. The eight goals which did for Saracens were not enough to win him a place, leaving him free to concentrate on Toulon's bid for a French and European double.
At 34, Wilkinson plans to go on for one more season in France. At 36, another Lions' No. 10, one who has almost certainly accumulated more points over his career than his prolific English counterpart, is expected to retire.
Ronan O'Gara left the stage in the finest showbiz tradition with the crowd clamouring for more, their cheers ringing in his ears. He wiped the tears away and waved to the battalions of the Red Army.
The rest of the rugby continent will have joined them in saluting a player who has done more than any other to make the European Cup like no other tournament in the sport.
That is one heck of a claim but considering that Brian O'Driscoll has been around for almost as long but then O'Gara has been one heck of a player.
Few, very few can last as long as he's done and still find enough left in the top drawer to produce something special in defiance of the opposition and the odds.
To do it at home with Thomond Park in full cry is one thing. To have done it on a foreign field in France against the best club in Europe, at a time when Munster were in some danger of being put to the sword, was something else entirely.
There was a point against Clermont when so many chips were down that it looked as if the whole fish shop was about to implode. A lesser team would have capitulated.
Instead Munster dug in as only they can and recovered from the initial pounding - a team effort, of course, with everything revolving around O'Gara's generalship. That Clermont were mightily relieved to hear the final whistle said everything about Munster and their ringmaster.
The match had everything, except the fairytale of a final in Dublin and a stage worthy of an old warrior the like of whom we will be lucky to see again.
The figures are those of a man apart. His achievements in Europe - 109 matches, 480 goals, 1360 points) are so towering that they may never be threatened. Wilkinson would be the first to admit that his numbers in the same competition are puny by comparison.
O'Gara is the world's most-capped fly half (128 Tests). He stands fourth on the all-time international points list with 1,085 including 394 goals, more than anyone except Wilkinson (460) and Dan Carter (495).
His Munster details are also without precedent - 236 matches, 2,560 points. Three games which ensure O'Gara's name will forever be synonymous with historic deeds by Munster and Ireland all happened on his favourite piece of non-Irish real estate, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
There, over a period of three years, he was a central figure in a Holy Trinity of victories for province and country - Munster's European Cup finals of 2006 and 2008 followed by Ireland's Grand Slam in 2009.
No shortage of Welsh pundits had singled him out before the match as a source of defensive weakness. O'Gara took some heavy punishment. Every time they knocked him down, he picked himself and, with an impeccable sense of the dramatic, dropped the winning goal two minutes from time.
Triuly, the stuff of legend. 'It's not for me to say whether I'm one,' he said after passing one of his more recent milestones. 'That's for when you're sitting on the coach and patting yourself on the back after you've done all you can and you've hanged up your boots'.
As legends go, Ronan O'Gara is in the Champions' League. ..
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