Gregor Paul: Lions becoming an increasingly hard watch

It feels a bit petty to be picking away at the Lions, chiding them for a gameplan that they are absolutely entitled to employ.

Rugby is a game of strategy. It's what makes it work - that there are athletes of all different shapes and sizes and options how to use them.

Homogenised rugby isn't something to celebrate. Diversity is and it is entirely small-minded to be critical of the Lions for adopting a gameplan that is fully aligned with their strengths.

And yet for all that it is silly, possibly irrelevant and just a little bit mean to accuse the Lions of being limited, one dimensional and dragging rugby back to a time when it was all was scrums, lineouts and goal kicks, it's impossible to resist.

This Lions side is becoming an increasingly hard watch. The game in Rotorua had an entertainment factor of zero. It was dull. Astonishingly dull and probably failed to ignite the imagination of a single person who saw it.

The Maori were poor to the point of being almost shambolic towards the final quarter and the relentlessness of the Lions carried its own complex tedium.

They couldn't be faulted for persevering with what was working so well for them and yet who didn't hanker for them to at least once or twice hang their hat on something different?

Conor Murray is a brilliant kicker, but he's also - not that anyone would know from what has happened so far on this tour - a brilliant runner. So is Johnny Sexton and while everyone says George North is struggling for form, how would anyone really know?

Big George, who was so good last year with Wales out here, has barely had a pass come his way. Maybe at 1.94m and 110kg, he's a bit miffed at being asked to chase high kicks all game.

The man's the size of a fridge - chuck him the ball and tell him to run.

The single-mindedness of the Lions is both admirable and yet such an enormous barrier to them being a team that anyone will look back on and remember fondly.
They are the antithesis of the 1971 Lions - a team that shook New Zealand free of its own obsession with the exclusively physical and opened eyes to the full array of skills that can be nurtured.

The Lions are exclusively muscular and direct. Fair play if they win the series - they will deserve every accolade that comes their way, but victory still won't make them a team that changes mindsets around the world.

Every other international side has tried in the last five years to add pass and catch to their repertoire.

Argentina, arguably the least expansive side five years ago, have ditched their past to play a wider, ball-in-hand game that has seen them score tries like they never have before.

Give them a few years to refine their patterns and micro skills and watch them climb the world rankings.

Same with Scotland. They are heading up the rankings the more they trust their skills and the more attacking threats they add to their game.

And that's kind of the point of rugby. It is not about being exclusively one thing or another - the best teams have a range of options to work. They utilise everything they have from set-piece efficiency to collision dominance to footwork, intricate passing and brutal defence.

The greater the mix, the greater the chance of being able to pull the right strings to win and to win in a manner that collects a few admirers along the way.