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Home / Sport / Rugby / All Blacks

<EM>Gavin Hastings:</EM> Scant consolation from debacle

25 Jun, 2005 10:34 AM3 mins to read

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Not only was last night tremendously disappointing for supporters of the British and Irish Lions, but worse is the fact I can't see any conceivable way Clive Woodward can turn things around in a week.

It's a real disappointment, no question, and I can find scant consolation in any facet
of the game.

From the first minute we were playing second fiddle to the All Blacks. We were leaden-footed and no answer to the All Blacks power and passion. They were fully deserving of the 21-3 scoreline and were it not for the conditions it could have been a lot more.

What can Woodward do? To be honest his entire planning has been based around England's World Cup success, but England haven't been good for a long time.

In effect, he's created a rod for his own back.

Of real concern was the fact that the Lions didn't look as if they'd had enough game time together. They were leaden footed, the passing was slow and laboured, the angles were poor and we were very flat in attack.

Simply put, nobody looked comfortable with each other.

Our backs couldn't compare to the guile of Justin Marshall and Daniel Carter, while Tana Umaga and Aaron Mauger were excellent.

How Jason Robinson was selected at fullback I'll never know. He looked like he'd never played there in his life. Meanwhile you had Josh Lewsey, who's done a reasonable job there on tour, stuck on the wing.

The Stephen Jones-Jonny Wilkinson combination didn't work either.

Wilkinson had a poor game, he kicked one and he missed one, but there's no way you are going to win tests by kicking six points so maybe he should drop back to the bench.

There's no way Woodward can contemplate not changing the team. He has to. That means a lot of the guys will have to play again on Tuesday and Saturday, which is hardly ideal preparation for a test.

I can't see any way Gavin Henson won't be brought back into the team. Where we went wrong last night was in the combinations and Woodward will have to go with combinations he knows will work, like Dwayne Peel, Stephen Jones, Henson and possibly Tom Shanklin at centre.

Losing Brian O'Driscoll was devastating and it exposed Will Greenwood. Many would have felt he was lucky to be selected in the 22.

Woodward will be very disappointed with the lineout also. Shane Byrne was picked to do a job and it came unstuck.

They had 10 days to get them right so you've got to wonder what they were doing. Mind you, you could say that about the whole team.

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