Richard Loe: Lions boost but more required in tests

The Lions again showed their power and value with their victory over the Chiefs, but gee they can play negatively.

You could argue rugby broke out in the 58th minute when Jack Nowell raced across for his try, but before that it was dire for patches.

The Chiefs were awful, something that was only really matched by the performance of referee Jerome Garces, who is in charge for the second test. He must have a holiday home in somewhere like Swansea, judging by a couple of those early penalties.

Still, the Chiefs didn't show their full capability and it was cruel they missed so many frontline players. The tight five played well with the ball in hand, but the Lions roasted them at scrum time. The tourists also proved players like Nowell and Liam Williams have the ability to run out wide. Despite that, the execution was lacking with a few of the backs' passing moves. I don't think anyone from their mid-week line-up said "pick me" for the tests.

There was also the unusual phenomenon on the Chiefs' early lineout ball where the tourists appeared to be making noises to disrupt the call. That was ordinary, and something you might expect at under-15s or third XV level.

Still, they scored a couple of good tries, and morale will have been boosted as a touring group by the fact they were relatively convincing at set piece and opened the game up in the final half hour. The Waikato public can consider they saw the cream of the Home Nations crop throwing the ball about.

Having said that, the Lions don't seem to be as agile as our players from 10 through to 15. As a result, counterattacking could become a pivotal area of the first test on Saturday at Eden Park against the All Blacks. The type of game the Lions play is a lot different and bases itself on pressuring oppositions into mistakes. They do a good job of retaining ball, but that won't be enough to satisfy locals when it comes to rating them as a test side.

The Lions coaches deserve credit though. They must've pointed out a few areas for improvement which helped the mid-week side. The Highlanders appeared to contain them much better in their victory last week.