Henry sympathises with Sir Clive

For the record, All Blacks rugby coach Graham Henry says he sympathises with his vanquished opposite Clive Woodward.

Having experienced losing a Lions test series back in 2001 against Australia, Henry can also relate to the injury toll which has mounted alarmingly in the past few days.

Coach Woodward, trailing 0-2 in the series, yesterday ruled six players out of Saturday's third and final test including star first five-eighth Jonny Wilkinson and second five-eighth Gavin Henson -- both with nerve damage in their shoulders.

He was to name his team today, with five more players under injury clouds including captain Gareth Thomas (virus) and prop Gethin Jenkins (ankle).

Henry recalled when he fronted for third test training in Sydney with the 2001 series poised 1-1, he had just eight fit players take the pitch.

They went on to lose a thrilling final test to the Wallabies, and the emotions were still vivid for the coach who now presides over the form team of world rugby.

"I'd probably know better than anyone else what Clive's going through and I understand that. I sympathise with him on that," Henry said yesterday.

Woodward was flanked last night by team doctors James Robson and Gary O'Driscoll as it took 45 minutes to run through 11 injuries.

Others ruled out of Saturday's test were prop Andy Sheridan (ankle), centre Ollie Smith (ribs), lock Ben Kay (eye) and first five-eighth Charlie Hodgson (concussion).

As if Woodward needed any prompting, he defended the unprecedented number of players selected to tour, which totalled 51 with Wales lock Brent Cockbain and Scotland loose forward Jason White's inclusion last week.

He looked further back than 2001 to say why his year-long planning for this tour came up with a 45-man squad.

"This is the hardest Lions tour by a long, long way and every game -- bar Manawatu -- has been full on.

"I read a book on the 1983 and 1993 tours here and they were miserable tours... they seemed to run out of players.

"There's no way you can play that many matches with those numbers and survive today."

In 1983 when Woodward was part of the Lions squad, he said they took 30 players and played 18 matches which would be unheard of in the physical modern game.

"We've already had 13 ruled out, the game has changed.

"What we'd end up with was nothing like a test team when we arrived at the test matches. It's a numbers game in terms of protecting players to a certain degree."

Woodward agreed the large numbers has meant combinations were more difficult to establish, one of the major criticisms of his tour strategy.

The first test side had just one match together, against Wellington 10 days out from the first test.

Woodward reiterated his dilemma -- wanting to balance the Lions tradition of touring an entire country with the most important goal of winning the test series, which only the 1971 Lions had achieved here.

"It was all planned around giving the team the best possible chance of preparing to win those first two tests, and clearly we got that part of it wrong," Woodward said.

"I don't think that's down to numbers, because I'd rather go in with a fresh team. If I had my time again, I'd ask the Lions management to put the top 22 in cotton wool and play no games and get ready for that first test.

"I think rightly they would turn that down because that would be the end of Lions touring as we know it."

- NZPA