Martyn Williams insists Warren Gatland should opt for experience and not Sam Warburton as British and Irish Lions captain.
Gatland names his squad and skipper for the tour of Australia on Tuesday. Warburton is a red-hot favourite for the honour and some bookmakers have suspended betting.
Inexperienced: Sam Warburton
But three-time Lions tourist Williams, who mentored Warburton at Cardiff Blues, believes the armband should be given to Brian O'Driscoll.
Williams said: 'Until you go on a Lions tour, you can't understand what it's like. The magnitude of it and the hype, it just knocks you for six.
'It will be difficult for Sam, because not only is it his first tour, but he is thrust in as captain. I would go with Brian O'Driscoll and, if not Brian, Paul O'Connell, because they have been there and done it.'
Warburton would be the first player to captain the Lions without previously touring since Finlay Calder in 1989.