Dylan Cleaver: Lions make themselves at home

George North tries to make a burst. Photo / Brett Phibbs

With big swathes of travelling support, a tightly-packed ground which puts spectators within touching distance of the action and a chill in the air that wormed its way into your bones, tonight had a very British feel to it.

With a scoreboard that never ticked over by any more than multiples of three, and a ball that saw far more air off the boot than it did through the hands, you could argue, if you were of a cynical mind, that it had a very northern look to it as well.

Aesthetics be damned, though, the British and Irish Lions were acutely aware that the time for winning new friends was long gone; the time to win matches was upon them.

So a local crowd that turned up in with near certitude that their Crusaders were going to inflict further misery on the Lions departed with barely a drunken whimper. Watching Conor Murray launching pinpoint box-kick after box-kick was a sobering experience for Cantabrians used to seeing their side counter-attack with impunity.

In 1971, a provincial game in Christchurch was the backdrop for what became a defining tour in Lions history.

On that occasion the men in red beat Canterbury 14-9 in a match remembered more for its brutality and wanton violence than it was for the quality of rugby. The Lions stood tall that day and showed they would not be bullied.

This time the violence was channeled into aggressive tackling and one-off ball carrying. It was legal but it may also prove to be no less instructive than the events of '71.

If these Lions are to do the improbable and beat the All Blacks in a series for the first time in close to five decades, they will do so like they did tonight - with kicking, accurate line-speed defence and mostly mistake-free ball-carrying.

Warren Gatland was clearly a happier man but he was doing well to downplay it. His post-match analysis was free of animation or hyperbole.

He certainly didn't feel the need, as he put it sotto voce last week, to "[bad word] keep defending myself".

"It's been a tough week, there's been a lot of criticism," was about his only concession to the discomfort he's felt in the days after their woeful tour opening win against a scratch side of semi-pros in Whangarei and the loss to the Blues.

The Crusaders are a superior side to both those opposition, and they never got a look in.

The Lions made themselves at home in Christchurch, carving out a wee piece of home in what was once hostile territory.