Jonathan Davies: Get a grip on the loosies, or else

There are some fundamental aspects to winning matches in New Zealand and, after three matches, the Lions are still struggling to come to grips with them. The gainline is king and, at the moment, the New Zealanders are on the throne.

There has been a lot of talk about the breakdown, and the refereeing interpretations of it. I think people are forgetting how often teams from the home unions come up against Southern Hemisphere opposition and, even more often, get refereed by Southern Hemisphere officials.

If it is true that there are differing interpretations, then Sir Clive Woodward and his coaches have had plenty of time to prepare for them.

I think the real reason the New Zealanders are successful at the breakdown is their dominance of the gainline. It's not simply about the numbers of players being committed there. The Lions forwards in Hamilton were having to double back before they could hit the rucks and mauls, whereas the Maori were picking up from the scrum or the ruck and going forwards. It is a basic difference which counts for an awful lot.

Some things in rugby do not change. I toured New Zealand with Wales and we were terrorised by a fellow called Michael Jones, a great flanker and one who had the good fortune of having at No 8 Wayne "Buck" Shelford, a rather handy henchman.

Just as Jones was able to create havoc back then, so Marty Holah had a field day for the Maori because his side's defence was aggressive and the Lions failed to cross the gainline. The Lions were playing laterally, into the hands of Holah.

With Richie McCaw looming on the horizon to play openside in the tests, the Lions know they must nullify the threat of the "loosies", as they call them Downunder, or they will just be making life easy for them.

There is a theory that Woodward and his coaches are keeping something back, which I hope is true, though I am not too confident. The All Blacks have yet to reveal their full hand, though in poker parlance a 91-0 win over Fiji seems like a pair of aces in the hole to me.

If Woodward is bluffing he must have a few big ball-carriers up his sleeve that I don't know about. With the possible exception of Martin Corry and Lewis Moody, I am not sure who they are.

The Lions called Ryan Jones of Wales out as cover for Simon Taylor, and Ryan can carry the ball, but whoever does the job had better start doing it against Wellington and Otago this week.

The next few days are when Woodward, Andy Robinson and Eddie O'Sullivan will have to earn their corn as coaches. There were too many handling errors but I would be more concerned at the lack of a strategy.

They have simply got to get over that gainline. There were so many other key areas with little glitches. Steve Thompson's throwing started off all right, but it deteriorated. He was under attack from the Maori and their two-man lifts at the back of the lineout. That is something the Lions should be able to work on. The same goes for the restarts, at which the Lions did not compete. Stephen Jones kicked long but that only invites the prospect of counter-attacks from the back three.

At the scrum I felt the back row could have done more to help out new boy Andy Sheridan at loosehead. The back row were binding loosely or standing up and the scrum was nowhere near as dominant as the Lions would like it to be. If a prop is struggling, sometimes you have to shove behind him.

The upshot was the Lions had very little field position. I counted on the fingers of one hand the number of times they were in the Maori 22. There was slow ball which they decided to shovel out, which meant a fair bit of rubbish coming the way of Matt Dawson and Stephen Jones.

The Lions need someone to put his hand up and replace Mike Tindall at second five-eighths. Gordon D'Arcy did not manage it on Saturday.

The try they did score was simple and direct: first and second-phase ball followed by a bit of magic from Brian O'Driscoll. It was a rare example of a Lion taking the game by the scruff of the neck.

I am sticking to my belief that the Lions' backs have the potential to do some damage. We haven't seen Jonny Wilkinson yet, nor Jason Robinson and Gareth Thomas. But to get the best out of them and the likes of Josh Lewsey they have to sort out those Kiwi loosies.

* Jonathan Davies is a former Wales and Lions five-eighth

- INDEPENDENT