Taylor was part of the historic tour to New Zealand 27 years ago, to date the only series triumph over the All Blacks in 120 years of Lions touring. The former London Welsh back row is still a keen student of the game and he believes that McGeechan and Davies can help the Lions put the last two tour defeats firmly behind them.
"Gerald and Geech have already said that they're going to take a small party," says Taylor, who won 26 caps for his country between 1967 and 1973.
"They are all going to tour around together and they're not going to make decisions before they go.
"I think it's a particularly important tour. They need to put a marker down for the Lions again and show that it's not an outdated concept."
John Taylor was part of an historic series win in New Zealand in 1971
Taylor feels that Sir Clive Woodward and his coaching team made a mistake in not identifying and grooming the Test side early enough in 2005. It is not an error that he anticipates McGeechan and Davies making in eight months time.
"I think you've got to be ruthless and get your Test side selected fairly quickly. You need to be very decisive and get that team playing together. They went into the first Test in 2005 with a team that had never played together but in 2009 I think it will be the opposite.
"You do tend to find that the Test team sorts itself out fairly quickly, but there's always a few surprises. In 1997, on the last tour to South Africa which they won, I think Jason Leonard and Dai Young were the two favourite props before they went out yet it was Paul Wallace and Tom Smith who ended up as the first-choice Test players. That will always happen on a Lions tour. It's the people who show themselves to be terrific tourists that manage to succeed.
"To me, it's vitally important that the Lions return to that sort of mindset."
