Dirt-trackers all too dusty

A giant, concrete banana is a tourist landmark round here, and in this instance it served as an apt metaphor for the Lions. They played poorly enough, the game itself was at times mind-numbingly boring, and yet you could only feel sorry for them.

For all the talk at the outset of the tour of unity being strength, and professionals brought in to intensify squad bonding, the truth is that the tour has barely kicked off and these dirt-trackers have been cast adrift.

Graham Henry has admitted that the management have thrown their eggs in the Test team's basket, and the extent to which Saturday's main men would be wrapped in cotton wool was emphasised by David Wallace running onto the pitch less than six hours after arriving here.

One almost expected Wallace to go around shaking hands with his new team-mates and introducing himself, which would not have been far removed from the sentiments expressed by some of the dirt-trackers before kick-off against Australia A.

Once again new combinations abounded, and with little in the way of set-piece organisation or moves, it was hardly surprising that the Lions struggled to take the ball beyond fourth and fifth phase. liability to both the game and the Lions. He continuously brought play back several phases after over-long advantages, called knock-ons from off seemingly any part of the anatomy, gave a fair old procession of penalties to the home side in particular, and yet virtually ignored the offside line around the rucks and mauls, allowing the latter to be pulled repeatedly. By the end the Cockatoo forwards weren't even making an attempt to position themselves behind the hindmost foot of the ruck.

Nor were the Cockatoos willing to roll over and have their bellies tickled. They were well prepared and very "up" for it, and they were clearly of a decent enough standard given that Cork Constitution's player of the year, Craig Taylor, was in their backrow.

Nor did he stand out, though the likes of scrumhalf Rod Petty and winger Vuli Tailasa did, as did pacey full back Nathan Croft - though his place-kicking was particularly abysmal, in direct contrast with Neil Jenkins.

That may even have given the Lions a slightly misleading gloss on the scoreline. Not that their travelling hordes in the 9,972 crowd were complaining. Mostly they were laughing and singing, breaking into Bread of Heaven when a clever midfield move between Jenkins, Mark Taylor and Martyn Williams launched Charvis through the initial line of defence and on through another couple of flimsy tackles for the Lions' second try.

The ground's official title of International Stadium is a bit grandiose to say the least, though it was the venue for Australia's footballing Kangaroos world record 32-0 over America Samoa.

A handsome win against the Wesfarmers Landmark New South Wales Country Cockatoos (gulp, to give them their full name, and the tireless and tiresome PA man never desisted) was an absolute "gimme". Hence, on the premise that the primary point of the exercise with next Saturday's first Test in mind was to give Iain Balshaw a chance to turn on the afterburners and rekindle his confidence, then this game was a failure.

Mind you, nothing was going on inside poor Balshaw to give him much room. Jenkins again took the ball still and flat before shovelling it along with no great purpose, and the Lions hardly had a move worth the name which means they've kept the entire lot under wraps for the Tests?

Balshaw was left to make things happen, and as is so often the case, when he forced things he came a cropper, most notably when another ill-judged counter-attack saw him unceremoniously dumped by Tailasa. It may, alas, have been one of the defining moments of the tour.

Once again the tourists were led with little inspiration by Dai Young in an unexceptional frontrow, with the spiritual leadership of the team predictably being taken up by Scott Gibbs.

Gibbs cajoled and encouraged throughout, and was the Lions main attacking weapon as he punched holes in the Cockatoo defence. He began and finished the try of the match as the Lions managed to inject a bit of a tempo and score five of their six tries in a 20-minute period during the middle of the match.

Admittedly, it was a generally slow-tempo game, which perhaps suited Gibbs, but he's quickly put the pressure on Rob Henderson for the number 12 jersey, and such competition for places is sadly rare.

For Malcolm O'Kelly, you'd have hoped that after his shabby treatment on tour so far and way below par performance against the Australian A side, this improved effort by might get him onto the Test bench. But there's a big campaign behind Martin Corry, who was selected as quasi second-row cover against New South Wales, and one also gets the impression that Andy Robinson and Phil Larder have a bigger say in selection than Donal Lenihan.

SCORING SEQUENCE: 8 mins: Jenkins pen 0-3; 23: Croft pen 3-3; 26: Cohen try 3-8; 32: Charvis try, Jenkins con 3-15; 38: Gibbs try, Jenkins con 3-22; 40: Healey try, Jenkins con 3-29; (half-time 3-29); 42: Jenkins pen 3-32; 46: Young try, Jenkins con 3-39; 62: Cohen try, Jenkins con 3-46.

NSW COUNTRY COCKATOOS: N Croft; V Tailasa, R Macdougal, K Shepherd, W Crosby; C Doyle, R Petty; A Baldwin, J McCormack, M Bowman, D Lubans, B Wright, B Dale, B Klasen, C Taylor. Replacements: G Refshauge for Wright (59 mins), D Dimmock for Taylor (64 mins), D Banovich for Crosby (64 mins), J Vaalotu for McCormack (65 mins), M Brown for Shepherd (68 mins), M Ellis for Doyle (70 mins), D Thomas for Baldwin (70 mins).

LIONS: I Balshaw (England); B Cohen (England), M Taylor (Wales), S Gibbs (Wales), T Howe (Ireland); N Jenkins (Wales), A Healey (England); J Leonard (England), G Bulloch (Scotland), D Young (Wales, capt), J Davidson (Ireland), M O'Kelly (Ireland), C Charvis (Wales), M Corry (England), M Williams (Wales). Replacements: (temp) R O'Gara (Ireland) for Gibbs (46-58 mins), D Wallace (Ireland) for Corry (57 mins), D Morris (Wales) for Leonard (58 mins), S Murray for O'Kelly (72 mins).