Wynne Gray: Toothless Lions get a mauling

As the Lions laboured to their 25-25 draw with the Puma pensioners, former test wing J.J. Williams launched into the red-jerseyed tourists.

The New Zealand media, he claimed, would crucify them when they arrived and the British media should crucify them before they left.

In truth, the Lions crucified themselves.

The public oversaw the death warrant and within an hour of the match ending in Cardiff yesterday, Centrebet had taken $20,000 on the All Blacks to win the test series while they held just $100 on the Lions.

However, there should be a warning that betting against Jonny Wilkinson will cause financial ruin.

This time he was in the red garb of the Lions rather than the white shirt of England, but his productivity did not alter.

The left-footed sharpshooter saved the Lions' total embarrassment with his final, majestic unerring strike of the Millennium Stadium test.

After 548 days of test inactivity, sorting out multiple injuries since his World Cup heroics in extra time, Wilkinson rescued the Lions with his boot, while his all-round instincts were sharp.

Wilkinson, Lewis Moody and Martin Corry were the best of an uninspired mob, a group who looked as though they were being careful not to get injured before the plane trip to New Zealand.

Both sides had a swarm of excuses they could have used. The Pumas were without 26 regulars who were club-tied or on sevens duty.

The Lions had held only four training sessions.

It was a leg-stretching drill before the real tour starts against Bay of Plenty, it was an extended run which doubled as a huge revenue-gathering exercise to offset some of the 10 million ($25.7 million) costs of the bloated tour party.

Maybe they were tired, maybe they were rusty. Maybe they were the players Sir Clive Woodward had already fingered as the also-rans.

This was a convenient moment to use most of them, especially as Woodward had pledged that all 45 players in the squad would get a chance to shoot for first-test selection.

Most of them shot themselves in the foot yesterday. To keep his selection warrant, Woodward has to give the rest their chances before he settles on his test squad.

Quite how he is going to offer decent opportunities for four hookers, four halfbacks, four first five-eighths, five No 8s and so on, in just five games, looks difficult.

Woodward must have pre-determined the bulk of his test squad - one he is likely to unleash against Wellington or Otago - and gleefully used the Pumas test as a way of dumping some contenders.

Those Lions who missed selection, Simon Taylor and Malcolm O'Kelley, who withdrew through injury, and the suspended Neil Back, were the fortunate ones.

Their colleagues showed a widespread lack of urgency and ability to create pressure, while Woodward showed more anxiety from his vantage point than he expected.

Lionophiles will argue the result was part of a cunning plan to lull New Zealand into complacency; cyclopsian All Black fans will be talking routs, while most rugby folk will take it for what it was.

The Lions did not want to divulge any secrets in Cardiff. That plan was never in danger with the way they played.