KEY POINTS:
Being a television match official has always appealed as one of those jobs anybody with at least as many brain cells as a plant could do.
How hard can it be? You sit in a soundproof booth eating cupcakes, drinking tea and watch telly. Every now and then you'll be asked to watch it a bit more closely and rule on what you see.
Any mug could do it, right?
Wrong.
For some strange reason the International Rugby League Confederation of Bright Ideas have decreed that watching telly is a job for two mugs. And, amazingly, two mugs still couldn't get it right.
With Great Britain desperate to cling to the Kiwis' coat-tails, winger Gareth Raynor did superbly to regather a grubber kick and, for all intents and purposes, score in the corner - 8-16, kick to come.
But hold on, referee Paul Simpkins just wants to check upstairs. Fair enough, it looks tight.
So there they are, Graeme West and Grant Wallace, brushing off crumbs as they settle down for a concentrated look at the tape. The atmosphere in there must be electric.
You have to imagine they have a checklist for this.
Was he onside? Yes.
Did he ground the ball properly? Yes.
Was he in the field of play? Yes.
So it was a try then?
Well, no, quickly followed by a look of disbelief on Raynor's face that was probably replicated on the faces of everyone watching the game on telly. Except the two men paid to watch it.
The argument will be that in the final wash-up it didn't make a difference. The Kiwis were vastly superior. But sport is all about shifts in momentum. A try then might have sparked something in the listless Lions.
Next time Messrs West and Wallace were called upon to adjudicate on a Great Britain try the match was over but the points differential permutations held some intrigue.
This time Leon 'Lonely Plant' Pryce was denied. They probably got that decision right. But then, it's not hard.
