Rugby: Records fall as Lions open with massive win

PERTH - The Lions opened their 10-match invasion of Australia last night with a 116-10 thrashing of West Australia.

The visitors scored a record 18 tries in clocking up a record three-figure total in the course of inflicting a record margin of superiority on their bemused opponents. Enthralling, it was not.

Which is not to say that the Lions did not play with a degree of exuberance and ruthlessness that whetted the appetite for the sterner challenges awaiting them over the next five weeks.

As Graham Henry, the tourists' head coach pointed out: "Eighteen tries? That's a lot of scoring. We lost our structure at times, and I felt we needed more unselfish running off the ball to free up space. But hell, you have to take some positives from that performance."

Aware that the alleged contest was little more than a semi-opposed training run, he awarded his side "six out of 10".

Seven would have been fairer, if only in acknowledgement of the concentration and fitness levels required to attack from minute one to minute 80.

Lions parties have hit the ground running before: 12 years ago, when the best of Britain and Ireland last visited Australia, they put 44 points on the same opponents in the same city.

Ciaran Fitzgerald's 1983 vintage began their tour of New Zealand with a 47-pointer against Wanganui.

Early in the 1974 schedule, Willie-John McBride's pride rattled up 97 points against the South Western Districts of Springbok country.

However, a three-figure tally did nothing to enhance the Lions tradition.

It was too easy for words and barely worthy of serious analysis.

Trefor Thomas, the Western Australia captain, had hoped for a "respectable" defeat of between 40 and 50.

As it turned out, the Lions had 57 on the board by half-time. Scott Quinnell scored the first of his three tries as early as the third minute, brushing aside the full-time carpenter Mark Gardiner as if he were ... well, a full-time carpenter, as opposed to a full-time rugby player.

Rob Howley dummied over six minutes later, Dan Luger sprinted clear five minutes after that. It was mind-numbingly processional. Laughably, the longest the Lions went without scoring a try was a 10-minute spell midway through the first period.

"Sure, the game was what it was," shrugged Keith Wood, who might have preferred a stronger brew with which to toast his first match as Lions captain.

"I don't know that I'd put colossal significance on what happened out there, because I don't expect for a second that the games ahead of us will be as easy is that one."

- INDEPENDENT