Gavin Hastings: Robinson missing but Lions can still win 2-1

I feel sorry for Jason Robinson, Gareth Thomas, Stephen Jones and Neil Back as I don't think they'll make the first test against the All Blacks. And this is the test that the Lions have the best chance of winning. It's the test they have to win. I have to believe that the Lions can win the series and I also believe that whoever wins the first test stands the best chance of winning the series.

Certainly, it's the test match the All Blacks have the best chance of losing. I am sure Graham Henry, no matter what he says, will know that a test match against Fiji isn't the best way to prepare for the Lions.

I don't think the Lions can win the series 3-0. But I think they can win it 2-1 and the only way they can do that is by winning the first test. I do not think it will get any easier for them if they lose the first test, put it that way. The All Blacks will be coming on stronger after the first test, after they've had a decent run together.

If the Lions lose the first test, well, then it gets difficult. And I come back to Robinson, Thomas, Jones and Back. Perhaps Back wouldn't have figured in the first test anyway, even without his suspension, but I think the others would have been in contention. At least, they would have been if they hadn't been delayed - for French club commitments (Jones and Thomas) and Robinson's need to be with his wife during her pregnancy.

The way this tour is structured, as we discussed last week, there is very little time for anyone who is late on tour to be able to show Clive Woodward what he can do. Robinson, in particular, will be a loss as he provides the unexpected. He is a test for any defence and the Lions will miss that.

Having said that, I still think the Lions have got the best chance in the first test. As Woodward has said many times, he has brought 45 players to cover for such eventualities - but I still think it will be a difficult contest. Woodward will want to keep his team and his game plan secret and he said as much when he arrived in Auckland yesterday

But the plain fact is that he will want to give his best team a hit-out against the New Zealand Maori and against the Wellington team a week later. He may not play every test player together but I would expect virtually all the test team to be playing in one or both of those games. That gives Robinson, Thomas and Jones little or no time to impress.

The nature of a touring side, however, is that they grow with each passing week and individuals knit together. If they perform well, then it doesn't matter who is there and who isn't.

That's what I am hoping for. That's why this is such a test for Woodward. He has shown he is prepared to accommodate the needs of the professional era, whether that be clubs or personal circumstances, and it means he and his coaching team have to be able to accommodate adjustments like the temporary loss of these players.

It's not an easy thing to do. Not in New Zealand. Not when the players now know, after the Argentina game, that all the New Zealand sides they face will be really, really, raising their game to the highest level they can to beat them, just as the Pumas did.

That's the challenge of the Lions tour and that's why the anticipation levels are as high as they are in New Zealand.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY