Lions and Wallabies both guilty of intimidating tactics

By CHRIS LAIDLAW

The spectacle of an otherwise gentlemanly Waratahs fullback trying to get himself into the Guinness Book of Records for the number of punches thrown in 10 seconds, summed up the Lions tour of Australia in a single image.

It is one that the British media seized on with their customary enthusiasm and lack of objectivity. They maintained that the Australians were barbarians who won by foul play.

The Australians, never slow to give as good as they get, responded with accusations that the Brits always started it.

And so a war of words erupted in the lead-up to a big test series that could turn decidedly nasty.

The truth is that both camps are as guilty as sin.

The Lions and the Wallabies are masters of provocation and of preventing opposing players from getting at the ball, whether by artful obstruction or by huge cleanouts around the fringes of rucks and mauls.

To this you can add some creative jersey-pulling which Neil Back, the English pocket-rocket, has raised almost to an art form.

There is nothing more likely to provoke an outbreak of ill-temper than persistent tugging on the jersey.

The Lions came to Australia with a single mandate - to impose themselves physically on their opposition.

They have a mountainous forward pack whose skills in mauling and taking opposing players out at the margins of the law are frightening.

It will take everything that the Wallabies have to hold this aggressive juggernaut because it is also a mobile one.

Players such as Keith Wood, Richard Hill, Danny Grewcock and even the old villain himself, Martin Johnson, have raised their speed levels around the field appreciably.

Even the Lions props, never noted for their mobility in the past, seem to have fast-tracked themselves.

The lineouts promise to be a shambles because both sides specialise in getting across and under their opponents before it is legal to do so.

This dubious practice is another fuse that, once lit, tends to ignite an explosion of ill-temper.

So what are the Wallabies options?

They clearly lie beyond the heavy stuff because the Lions' defensive screen is so good around rucks and mauls that halfback George Gregan may have difficulty putting players into space up the middle.

If that does not work then the Wallabies are going to have to rely on their outside backs a good deal more than they have against other opponents.

Have they got sufficient strikepower out wide and how many risks are they prepared to take to break through, preferably from set play?

This is a familiar-sounding dilemma. It is exactly what the All Blacks are faced with in almost every test they play.

A heavy responsibility is loaded on the three-quarters to do the business, but in this respect the All Blacks are better equipped than the Wallabies and their outside backs are more accustomed to it.

For the sake of the game I hope the Wallabies backs will come up trumps, but it is going to take a stroke or two of genius.