Forget O?Driscoll, these Lions couldn?t have won a raffle on Saturday

We've said it once and we'll say it again
Fronting up to Australia and South Africa in the tri-nations series will be a tougher assignment for the current All Blacks rugby squad than taking on the Lousy Lions.
Outstandingly as the AB's played in the atrocious conditions at Jade Stadium on Saturday night they were aided and abetted by opposition which, well, wasn't any real opposition at all , was it?
They were awful with a capital A, and don't go blaming the early loss of captain Brian O'Driscoll and experienced flanker Richard Hill for their inadequacies.
From what they themselves have shown in previous games neither O'Driscoll or Hill were exactly in vintage form either and it is my firm contention that even if they had seen the whole game out the impetus of the game, and the final scoreline, would not have changed one iota.
If Saturday's test had been a horse race the entire Lions pack would have swabbed for performing well below expectations.
Not that anyone was anticipating them dominating the All Blacks there but, at the very least, they should have been able to manage close to parity in the crucial ball-winning departments of lineout and scrum.
I mean how on earth do you explain the Lions losing 10 lineouts on their own throws. They would have practiced, practiced and practiced their formations and calls and to get it so wrong on match day defies belief.
Sure, the fact the AB's made a conscious effort to compete on every opposition throw helped make life more difficult but the Lions did have the advantage of knowing where the ball was allegedly going, didn't they? So a couple of foul-ups could be considered acceptable but 10???.that's way off the radar in anybody's language
It was the same at scrum time.The Lions appeared to have the bulk and skill to make a real go of it the but right from word go they were on the back foot. And just as with the lineouts they seemed unable to find any answer to their woes, going from bad to worse as the game progressed.
Pre-match predictions that there would be a decent dust-up between the two packs early on in the game were awry but you have to wonder why the Lions didn't vent their frustrations in a physical sense, other than to have lock Danny Grewcott bite the finger of AB's hooker Kevin Mealamu and later get two months suspension for his troubles.
Remember the days when a bloke called Fitzpatrick skippered the AB's? How often then did you see the forwards provoke off-the-ball incidents at times when the Kiwis were struggling to quell the fire in their opposition's bellies. And how often did it work the oracle?
The Lions backs were like everyone knew they would be??..ponderous and lacking ideas.
Coach Woodward is clearly smitten by Jonny Wilkinson if his after-match comments weren't made in jest, and by the sombreness of his mood they certainly weren't that.
Woodward described Wilkinson's contribution as 'fantastic" when in actual fact he was simply a shadow of his usual self, kicking poorly and offering absolutely nothing in an attacking sense
By lavishing such praise on Dear Jonny you get the feeling Woodward was simply trying to remove some of the knives from his own back, having made the decision to play him at second-five rather than in his specialist role of first-five.It was a tactic which back-fired big time and in his heart of hearts Sir Clive will know it.
That the Lions will make changes to their playing personnel for next Saturday's second test in Wellington is absolutely, positively certain but whether Woodward will wield the axe with gay abandon is debatable.
The more changes he makes the more it is an admittance that he got it wrong first time round and that wouldn't sit easily with a man of Woodward's ilk.
So don't be surprised if most of those who were humbled at Jade Stadium are back on deck at the Cake Tin for what should be an equally humbling experience.
On the other hand it will be very much a case of steady as she goes for the All Blacks.
None of those who played in Christchurch are in danger of losing their places in the squad although I must admit that the inside back combination of Justin Marshall and Daniel Carter weren't quite as decisive as I expected them to be.
Sure, the ball was slippery and the wind and rain provided special problems of their own but whether that could be entirely blamed for Marshall's tendency to pass too high and Carter's habit of having his kicks charged down is questionable, isn't it?
The big plus for the AB's at Jade was undoubtedly the five-star performance of lock Ali Williams, a player I, for one, did not think merited his inclusion in the starting XV.
He and the always-reliable Chris Jack dined out on a regular basis at lineout time and were top value in all areas of the tight forward game as well
I must admit though to still having some misgivings about Williams' ability to respond to cooker pressure situations and it won't be until he strikes Australia and South Africa that we will know whether he has the goods or not.
Those games won't attract the same hype as the Lions tests but as we said previously they'll be tougher?.you can bet on that.