Cheating? Only if you get caught declares hooker

Don't ask Lions hooker Steve Thompson to join the belly-aching brigade on his coaching staff.

The massive Thompson is happy to say what happens on the field stays on the field. No bleating, no carrying on, belatedly, about the All Blacks cheating in the lineouts in the first test.

Thompson's viewpoint this week was understandable, as he was one of the Lions winners to emerge after the Christchurch wreckage. He has been promoted to take the place of Irish hooker Shane Byrne.

"Cheating? At times the All Blacks did that. They competed, they got away with it, they competed well," he said.

"It is all down to people saying 'oh they cheated', but you are not cheating unless you get caught. Simple as that."

Mid-week, as he worked his way through another lecture, coach Sir Clive Woodward implored the media to watch the lineouts, where he claimed the All Blacks had more numbers than the Lions when they threw the ball in.

Maybe there was some truth in the claim, but there had been no mention immediately after the international.

To make that assertion four days after the test in a week when the Lions had made all sorts of other allegations seemed excessive.

"That happened, but like you say in sport, if you don't get caught then you are not cheating," Thompson preferred to say.

"We did point it out in the game, but like I said, you play to the referee, don't you, and that is the experience you get from that.

"So fair play to the All Blacks for doing that, so really they didn't cheat because they did not get caught."

It was odd Thompson considered the Lions were too callow to deal with the lineout dramas, especially as Woodward had picked a side to handle the pressure at the highest level.

Why didn't they stop play like frontrowers when they were not set for scrums?

"Sometimes we done that and the referee was going to free-kick us for not throwing the ball in," he explained.

"It happens, we were put under pressure and sometimes when you are in the middle of it you don't quite know what is going on.

"They were really difficult conditions. I have never been in anything like that before and spent most of the game warming up.

"We made some errors under the pressure, but we have been practising hard, we have won some good lineout ball on tour and the basics are there. We just have to compete, have belief in ourselves and get on with it."

Byrne had his throwing problems and Thompson has a similar reputation for wayward deliveries.

At training he would throw 50 balls with the trainers and spend extra hours trying to oil his action.

"It is repetition and when you put in a good pass or a good kick you feel it, it is sweet, and it is the same with throwing," Thompson said.

"That is the rhythm you have got to try to get yourself into. When you find it, you keep going and give yourself a target.

"Some people train until they get it wrong and then they keep training until they get it right. Sometimes you have just got to know when to stop."

Before the first test Woodward thought he had the lineout to squeeze the All Blacks out of the test. After that collapsed he said he was still expecting the Lions to win 95 per cent of Thompson's throws.

"There are games when people miss kicks, people miss touch. Things like that it is human error," Thompson said.

"The All Blacks competed well, they went in with a plan that did throw us a bit, and fair play to that.

"That was last week. We are wiser, and the best thing from our point of view is that we get another chance."

Thompson confirmed the Lions had changed their lineout calls the day before the first test, an admission which may say more about their meltdown than any concern about numbers in the formation.

"We have got a calling system now that everyone understands."