'Enemy within' know they must perform

SYDNEY - Lions bad boys Austin Healey and Matt Dawson yesterday vowed to make their peace with their critics in the best possible way - by winning the series-deciding third test against Australia tomorrow.

Dawson gets his chance because first-choice halfback Rob Howley is injured. England team-mate Healey replaces dropped Wales winger Daffyd James.

Both have blasted Lions coach Graham Henry for the way he has divided the touring party into a test side and also-rans, and what they call a senseless training grind.

"Given the chance I certainly wouldn't have done that," Dawson said of his newspaper whinge that could have cut short his tour. "But I did and have to take the consequences.

"There's no doubt the third test will be the biggest game in my career.

"After the tour we've had I can't see anything surpassing this, save winning the World Cup itself," added the 29-year-old, who has been capped 41 times by England.

Dawson stepped in for the injured Howley in South Africa four years ago and his one-handed dummy pass for a match-winning try in the first test is part of Lions' history.

He has had an up-and-down career with England and had to fight back after shoulder dislocations ruled him out of Northampton's European Cup triumph against Munster last year and England's tour of South Africa.

A confrontational-type of halfback, he will certainly give Australia's George Gregan a contest around the base of the scrum.

Healey is given a run because Henry is desperate for some versatility.

"We feel that he might give us another dimension."

Healey said: "The Tuesday stiffs, as the weekend team are called, have been working pretty hard, and we thought it was probably our turn to get some of the glory and some of the plaudits.

"It will take a comprehensive performance of passion and ability, and we will have to pull out all the stops.

"Both sides have got great ability, and it is going to come down to who wants it most.

"There has been a lot of talking and a lot of propaganda going on, and it is probably about time to let the rugby say everything."

Meanwhile, Irish lock Malcolm O'Kelly has become the latest member of the party to criticise the management in a newspaper column.

O'Kelly, left out of the squad for all three tests, said members of the mid-week "dirt trackers" side felt they had been overlooked from the start.

"From the time we first gathered together as a squad, we were all inspired by the thought that there were no preconceived ideas of what the test team would be," he wrote in the Irish Independent.

"Now, however, one can't help feeling that the test team had been pencilled in from the very start, that management were oblivious to whatever the rest of the squad was trying to do.

"Instead of trying to promote their development and to let players flourish in such talented company, the feedback we received, if any, felt negative and hostile."

- REUTERS