Tourists are beginning to learn from their earlier mistakes

Wellington v Lions Reaction: For the last quarter, Jonny Wilkinson was moved to inside centre to give himself and Stephen Jones some game-time, and there's long been a whisper this might be a combination that will be employed in the tests.

However, nothing about this 20 minutes suggested it would be anything other than an unproven, untried and possibly unbalanced gamble. Yet, when asked afterwards about the reasons for making this switch and whether this option might be revisited later in the tour, midweek head coach Ian McGeechan gave a non-committal, non-answer.

"We wanted to give both players game-time and at that stage in the second half it seemed like the best way to do it. I'll leave it to Clive if he wants to do that again."

On one level,you feel sympathy for Wilkinson in that he seems to be under more scrutiny than other player out here or even on the planet. Everything he does is so clinically analysed. But he's had so little rugby of late and he possibly needs more match-time than anyone else in the test reckoning - hence there would seem to be a strong case for playing him (and possibly Jones) again on Saturday against Otago.

McGeechan admitted there was a difficult balancing act in establishing combinations and giving them time on tour, while not showing a full hand. "But I'm quite confident we'll have big combinations in place for next week."

The biggest positive from the night was the Lions' much improved work at the breakdown. There was anger in the start they made to this game. It's taken three matches for the lesson to hit home; you wonder how the whole contact/breakdown area has apparently taken them by surprise but they're learning to fight fire with fire.

"We were exposed in some aspects of our performance against the Maori," admitted Gareth Jenkins, "but the good thing is that that area of concern has been addressed. We have played well at the breakdown, in the lineout and in the scrums.

Jenkins was effusive in his praise of his namesake and compatriot, Gethin, who he described as "the man of the match in my opinion".

A repeated theme of the post-match analysis, especially by McGeechan and Brian O'Driscoll, was that the Lions were so often so close to scoring, with both men making much of the poor conditions.

"Conditions are a factor and if it's raining it favours defences," said McGeechan. "If you lose a second or half a second in your move it's relatively easy to cover defensively."

"I'm fairly pleased," said O'Driscoll, but he added: "total satisfaction would be a little over the top. We were one pass away from a score on a few occasions which was very frustrating, but we kept our patience for the full 80 minutes and didn't panic."

You know the wind and rain must have been bad when O'Driscoll was moved to say, "the ball was like a bar of soap and I haven't seen a wind like that since I've been in Lansdowne Road".

Mike Ford, praised loudly by McGeechan as the person most responsible for a near impregnable defensive effort and whose stock appears to rise all the time, said: "we're pleased with our (defensive) line speed and we forced a number of turnovers. They only busted us once or twice, but when they did I thought our scramble defence was very good. We've a long way to go before the first test, but we're on the right track and we're not showing everything yet. We're keeping a few things back."

A striking feature, journalistically, of some of the dealings with the home sides on this tour is how relevantly frank they are. Piri Weepu admitted he would have to revise his remark that the Lions didn't have the stomach for the fray at the breakdown and conceded "they've done their homework and they've improved".

When asked which of the two Lions' scrumhalves he's faced would he rather play if he was the All Blacks' number nine Weepu chose not to take the diplomatic route. He replied:

"If I was to play against one of them it would probably be Matt Dawson, but if I was to pick the Test half-back it would be Dwayne Peel. He's more elusive around the ruck area. He knows when to take his opportunities and he's always looking at options so I'd have to go for Peel as starting half-back."

John Plumtree, the Wellington coach, echoed Weepu's sentiments when admitting: "They've obviously worked at their clear-out and they're a little more accurate there." He also extolled the Lions' set-pieces.

Nonetheless, while the Lions were "really committed at the breakdown", he added "against the All Blacks they're going to have to have more continuity and if you over-commit then you're not going to have much left out wide."

The loss of their only genuine openside, Ben Herring, at the end of the first half didn't help Wellington's cause and when asked how the All Blacks would have fared against the same Wellington outfit, Plumtree commented: "They would probably have got 60, maybe 50."

Plumtree reckoned the All Blacks would have made more of the territory and possession the Lions enjoyed. He was mischievous when talking about the Lions' second-half tactical switches.

"I think Gavin (Henson) will be a little disappointed to be subbed twice in a row, though Charlotte (Chruch) will give him a hug," he said in reference to Henson's girlfriend who's just arrived here for a three-day visit.