Catastrophe upon catastrophe. A British & Irish Lions team that was bizarrely selected, which never even approached the upper limit of performance allowed by their inbuilt deficiencies, gave their worst display in a Test for 22 years — to be exact, since the fourth Test of the grim 1983 tour. If ever a performance betrayed an occasion, it was this one. Christchurch was seething and partying with tens of thousands of visiting followers, the predominant colour in the city and in the stadium was red, and the predominant noise came from British and Irish voices. Yet at the end of an evening that brought bitter and driving rain, the travelling army looked almost as bedraggled as the performance of their would-be heroes.
The Lions were cruelly afflicted. They have lost their captain for the whole tour. Brian O’Driscoll dislocated a shoulder as he was driven to the ground by Keven Mealamu and Tana Umaga. It was an incident about which Sir Clive Woodward complained bitterly last night, describing it as “an horrendous spear tackle.” However,the citing commissioner, humiliatingly for the Lions, found no case to answer and instead cited Danny Grewcock for an alleged bite on Mealamu. The hearing takes place today. Biting carries the longest sentence in rugby.
O’Driscoll will be out for months. Richard Hill is also out of the tour with a knee injury and it was revealed that Tom Shanklin, one of several Lions who really should have been in the squad yesterday, will also be departing with knee problems. These grievous blows, together with the abject disappearance of the Lions lineout in a sorry torrent of amateurish blundering, renders any hope of a revival painfully unlikely.
Supposedly, the wet weather which swept in during the afternoon was meant to help the Lions. So much for that theory. What we saw instead was a masterly demonstration of precision in basic skills from New Zealand.
Advertisement
There was nothing terrifying about the All Blacks. It was a shocking sign of the sheer awfulness of the Lions pack that they even managed to make the All Blacks scrum and driving maul look irresistible. But with such a mastery of the basics, it meant that hooker Mealamu was able to hit his jumpers and that Daniel Carter and Leon MacDonald were able to execute their kicks.
The Lions lost a haunting 10 out of 14 of their own lineout throws, they put no pressure whatsoever on New Zealand’s throw. Even those balls they did recover were delivered scrappily. Lions hooker Shane Byrne, whose selection was always likely to be a failure, could not even hit the farmyard, let alone the barn door, but he should not take all the blame. The Lions were disorganised, and with the referee allowing mayhem with the ball in the air, it was hugely disappointing that Ben Kay and Paul O’Connell allowed themselves to be shoved out of the action by the splendid Chris Jack and Ali Williams opposite them.
Afterwards, Woodward praised highly the contribution of Jonny Wilkinson. The truth is that Wilkinson, bless him, is unrecognisable. His tactical kicking was alarmingly short, his lack of power on the run left the Lions without a ball carrier up the middle and his only attacking manoeuvre was a rather stilted side-step. Woodward praised Wilkinson’s tackling, but for an inside-centre, that surely is the equivalent of congratulating the barber on cutting your hair. That is what he is there for.
Elsewhere, Jason Robinson, poor man, was a shadow of his true self, Will Greenwood, bravely replacing O’Driscoll, could make no impression and once again, it was left to Ryan Jones, splendidly impressive, to give the Lions some kind of go forward. Jones arrived as a replacement for Richard Hill, but he should clearly have started the match and you can write down his name for next week in complete confidence. He is a shining light in a team that is palpably undercooked, that is finding no understanding in its combinations, and that is in danger of subsiding completely.
Every time the Lions did win the ball they found themselves under pressure around the fringes from Richie McCaw and Umaga. Every time New Zealand won the ball there was the chance that Aaron Mauger would create something or, at the very least, that Carter would drill it deep to put pressure on the Lions and put the tourists’ kicking game to comparative shame. New Zealand were already away at 6-0 after 12 minutes with the lineout already a shambles. The Lions did give themselves some hope when they conceded only three points during O’Connell’s spell in the sin-bin, after a garish offside at the back of a ruck.
Advertisement
But the Lions then shot themselves in both feet in quite horrendous style. First, Stephen Jones kicked high and diagonal for Josh Lewsey, but the All Blacks cover outnumbered Lewsey by four to one and set off on the counter.
They forced the Lions to throw into a lineout. As sporting disasters go, this was, well, disastrous. Byrne threw to the middle, no Lion lifter had even taken a grip on a jumper, nobody jumped and nobody even put their hands up to try to win the ball. Williams stopped laughing just long enough to snaffle the ball, make a powerful run to the line and, in his haste, he did not even stop to complain about the lack of gift wrapping.
The Lions had managed a few sustained attacks, but all of Neil Back, Wilkinson and Byrne opted to kick ahead when the moves were becoming interesting and a Wilkinson penalty miss sent the Lions in at 11-0 down. It was not an insurmountable score given that they were turning to play downwind, but if your lineout is a sieve and your kicking game is poor, then not even a hurricane can help you.
The killing blows duly fell. Carter kicked a penalty after O’Connell had taken out Jack in the air — Jack should have been sin-binned for a similar offence earlier.
The Lions were awarded a penalty, Dwayne Peel knocked on badly as he tried to take a quick one. Mauger and Umaga ran beautiful lines in the very next attack, Sitiveni Sivivatu cut up the remaining defence to run in and score, and one of the gloomiest days in Lions history turned an even deeper shade of black.
Advertisement
STAR MAN: Chris Jack (New Zealand)
New Zealand: L MacDonald (M Muliaina 69min); D Howlett, T Umaga (capt, R Gear 75min), A Mauger, S Sivivatu; D Carter, J Marshall (B Kelleher 67min); T Woodcock (G Somerville 67min), K Mealamu (D Witcombe 75min), C Hayman, C Jack, A Williams, J Collins (S Lauaki 77min), R So’oialo, R McCaw
British & Irish Lions: J Robinson (S Horgan 57min); J Lewsey, B O’Driscoll (capt, W Greenwood 2min), J Wilkinson, G Thomas; S Jones, D Peel (M Dawson 74min); G Jenkins, S Byrne (S Thompson 57min), J White, P O’Connell, B Kay (D Grewcock 57min), R Hill (R Jones 18min), M Corry, N Back
Yellow card: Lions: O’Connell (11min)