Woodward learns little from Pumas lesson

Rugby/Lions tour news: Whatever about the few unfortunate punters who placed big bets on the Lions to beat Argentina at the prohibitive odds of 100 to 1 on, for all the positive spin Clive Woodward and Ian McGeechan sought to put on the Lions's 25-all draw in Cardiff on Monday night they had conveyed an altogether more stinging verdict in the post-match dressingroom.

From the players' somewhat grim countenance, it was also clear that their performance had fallen some way short of their own expectations.

History tells us that the Lions lost their tour opener in 1971 to Queensland (by 15-11) before going on to record their only Test series win in New Zealand - the defeat in the second Test being the only other loss in 25 subsequent matches.

It was at least a marker of sorts and, as Woodward pointed out afterwards, everyone came through without injury. More than anyone, this applied to Jonny Wilkinson, whose work-hungry performance - if blighted by an undistinguished kicking game from the hand - provided enough evidence that he can be back to something akin to his best by the first Test.

Another of Woodward's mantras was that the draw had served to "keep our feet firmly on the ground". It certainly achieved that much, not least for the likes of Gordon D'Arcy and John Hayes, who will now be under pressure to make the most of whatever chances come their way.

The same must also apply to Graham Rowntree (being picked to scrum against the Pumas was surely one of the Lions's shortest straws), the strangely subdued Michael Owen and Gareth Cooper. Coming off the bench wasn't the no-win scenario that had been envisaged, and Shane Horgan and Chris Cusiter were amongst the night's few winners.

Not the least disconcerting aspect to the muddled performance was that the game plan was clearer when explained by Ian McGeechan afterwards than had been the case during the match. "We wanted to play it a little quicker out of contact," said McGeechan.

Yet if the Lions sought to play more of an offloading game this hardly tallied with their repeated tendency to go wide with long skip passes behind decoy runners and without first engaging Argentina up the middle.

When Horgan came on and gave the midfield some oomph, there was more shape and variation to the Lions's game and they started to move the venerable Pumas's pack around. And when McGeechan spoke of the Lions becoming "over-excited", he surely had Shane Williams uppermost in mind.

In mitigation, many hadn't played a game for three or four weeks. But with only three to five recognised front liners in amongst their ever-proud Lions tamers, and up to 26 unavailable, all the Lions's excuses were nothing compared to Argentina's.

As Felipe Contepomi put it succinctly afterwards: "To be a British and Irish Lion you have to be the best of four nations. We couldn't have the best of one nation; it was nearly a third team," he said, pointing out that some of their home-based amateur players had never played in front of crowds bigger than 2,000 before.

"Nobody was talking about a Jonny Wilkinson kick to draw the game, everybody was talking about a stroll in the park for the Lions," he added. "We spoke about trying to attack them off turnovers. We knew they would have only a week to work together and defence is one of those things that you have to work it and work it and work it."

Once again their coach Marcelo Loffreda and Contepomi appealed for equality and fairness politically, so that clubs are put under greater pressure to release Pumas for Test duty by the IRB. Loffreda also expressed a preference for Argentina to be granted entry into the Six Nations rather than the Tri Nations, and even offered to play all their games away from home.

No doubt, as with Italy, if the International Rugby Board or the elite nations ever do give the Argentinians an even break, it'll probably be after this richest cycle in their history that they'll get around to it.

Watching from their bunkers on the other end of the globe were the All Blacks, whose assistant coach Wayne Smith observed: "It was pretty rusty and we don't think we will take a lot out of it. I don't think they will play like that when they come out here." Besides which, he felt, the positives accompanying Wilkinson's return counterbalanced the negatives. Smith added: "In general he fed the ball well. He tackled well and ran well and he's clearly done some work on his fast feet."

Meanwhile, Woodward has agreed that, as with the French-based Gareth Thomas and Stephen Jones, Jason Robinson can delay his departure to New Zealand to spend more time with his pregnant wife Amanda.