Peter Bills: The big nosedive

The prospects of the 2005 Lions have virtually come down to the continuing health and fitness of just five players.

After their three opening games, it has become clear that a handful of players hold the key to the Lions' chances.

Now that the hugely influential Lawrence Dallaglio has been lost, captain Brian O'Driscoll, fly half Jonny Wilkinson, lock Paul O'Connell, tighthead prop Julian White and hooker Steve Thompson stand alone as the key men on this tour. If they were to fall by the wayside, the Lions' chances of even taking a test match off the All Blacks would be slim.

Should injury prevent White playing tighthead in the tests, then the Lions would have to ask youngster Matt Stevens to fill the role, which would be a huge ask. Thompson is first-choice hooker, O'Connell is the No 1 lineout forward, although even he will need a more reliable service than Andy Titterrell managed against Taranaki. O'Driscoll's sublime talents speak for themselves, Wilkinson's tactical skills and points-scoring abilities, likewise.

Head coach Sir Clive Woodward needs one commodity more than anything else at present: a huge ball of cotton wool. He should wrap those five players in it and use them very sparingly before the first test on June 25. The loss of any of them would be cataclysmic.

The Taranaki match confirmed that, although the Lions have 45 players in New Zealand, many of them are not of Lions quality.

Their first-half showing was poor, so much so that Taranaki deserved their 7-6 halftime lead. It would be unwise to read too much into the Lions' second-half improvement, as the locals ran out of steam on the hour mark. Then the Lions swept home.

But the match confirmed that Irish tighthead prop John Hayes should never have gone on the tour. He was again cruelly exposed as a weak scrummaging tighthead, just as he had been against Argentina and in the Six Nations championship.

The Lions' scrum was in disarray until Hayes' departure. Not 100 per cent his fault, that's for sure, but a tighthead is the rock of any scrum and if ever a player's substitution was an acknowledgement of his inability to handle this level of rugby, then it was Hayes' at New Plymouth.

For the Lions to bring on a loosehead instead of him spoke volumes for the management's view of the Irishman's failings.

It's going to be a long four weeks for Hayes on this tour.

But put together the poor performance against Argentina, the substandard first 40 minutes against Taranaki and the alarming wobble against Bay of Plenty, and you have cause for concern. Either these Lions are taking a long time to gel and fire, or they just aren't good enough. Time will tell on that one.

But it's hard to see how you can develop your game, given a tackle count of 94 in the first 40 minutes against Bay of Plenty, a scrum that looked a shambles for 50 minutes against Taranaki and the failure of the forwards to contest rucks and mauls in numbers in all three opening matches.

In other words, welcome to New Zealand. These 2005 Lions are no different to their previous colleagues in one respect: they have already received a harsh dose of reality concerning the intensity of the game in this land.

Those who have observed New Zealand rugby down the years recognised some familiar aspects in these early matches. And the 2005 Lions, like their predecessors, must now either make the step-up in class required or go the way of tours such as 1966 and 1983.

Two key elements have again been rammed home with brutal clarity. The first is the far greater levels of mental concentration demanded in the game in this land, compared with most of the Northern Hemisphere. Switch off for a moment here, fall off a tackle and someone somewhere is through you, exposing your mental slumber. Bay of Plenty emphasised that point vividly and although Taranaki were not good enough to take advantage, they also exposed some basic fault-lines in the Lions' play.

The reason is the superior strength in depth New Zealand enjoys compared with the other countries the Lions tour. Neither South Africa nor Australia can offer such depth.

Those levels of concentration that will be required for all 80 minutes of every game of this tour will leave these Lions as weary mentally as physically.

The second element concerns the New Zealanders' superior execution in general of their skills at pace, compared with most other countries. They are used to operating under the combined pressures of pace and fierce physical examination.

Possession is not just maintained under the fiercest physical pressure, but transferred to colleagues at speed, thereby maintaining the constant probing for chinks in the opposition's defensive armour. Opponents cannot relax for a second.

It is up to the Lions to stand up and match these exacting standards. Revealingly, what the Lions have shown is an ability to prosper out wide IF their forwards can secure fast, re-cycled possession from the breakdown. The coruscating running from fullback of Josh Lewsey and Geordan Murphy demonstrates that there is pace, verve and danger out wide.

I suspect Woodward still hopes to play a tight game in the test series, based on forward strength and the kicking of Wilkinson into the corners and at goal. After all, England under Woodward won the World Cup by playing that percentage game.

* Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London.