Justin Marshall: Lions have no need to panic

The first game of a Lions tour is always going to be heavily scrutinised and clearly there has been a lot of criticism of the team's performance in Whangarei but in my view, there's no need for alarm.

The Provincial Barbarians put on a courageous performance and did New Zealand proud.

The Lions were probably caught in a slightly fragile mindset because they were up against a team no one knew a great deal about and they were told they should win comfortably.

They were huge favourites to beat the Barbarians and when reality hit, and the toughness and competitiveness of the Baabaas sunk in, they weren't in a great space to grit their teeth and dominate.

But, and this is important, they are holding a hell of a lot back. They had some great opportunities to show some attacking prowess and they were pretty basic and ordinary in that regard. From attacking scrums and lineouts, they went direct, with no subtlety, variation or creativity.

That is an awareness that they will be super analysed on this tour. They will make no bones about the fact they want to stay unbeaten, but as skipper Sam Warburton has said, they will take the occasional loss for a series win over the All Blacks.

They know they have the firepower and game plan but won't want the All Blacks analysing them for the next three weeks. They were holding a massive amount back because they went into the game knowing the Baabaas were their weakest opponents and that they wouldn't need to do anything out of the ordinary to get a result.

There are areas for them to work on, and they would have learned a bit about New Zealand players and their physicality, skill level and defensive intent. But a lot of the criticism is unjustified.

Think back to the All Blacks at the last World Cup. They played within themselves during the pool phase and I think the Lions are treating this tour in a similar way.

The conundrum for them is they looked mediocre and now they're copping a lot of criticism, not only here but at home. But they will be taking it on the chin - they won't say it publicly, but as a former player, I know they will be thinking 'let them say what they want, let's just keep doing what we're doing'.

The game turned into a bunfight because mentally they weren't quite right. That won't happen again because the quality of the opposition and knowledge of the players will increase.