O'Gara pulls frayed second string

LIONS TOUR/Southland 16 Lions 26: The shortest day of the year in New Zealand but in many ways the longest night of the Lions' tour. Consigned to dirt-tracker status, the midweekers duly descended into midweek mediocrity in Invercargill against a game but strictly limited Southland side who brought the visitors down to their level for long chunks of the night.

Amid a marked reluctance to make hard yards until some of the replacements, especially Andy Sheridan, arrived and Donncha O'Callaghan took up the cudgel, repeatedly the Lions ran slow ball in what was a shapeless performance, riddled with handling errors and poor decision-making.

Profiting wide out from Ronan O'Gara's wristy, flat distribution along the gain line, the midweekers were probably lulled into a sense that they were going to fill their boots (and simply had to if they were to make an impression on the Saturday set-up) by racing into an early 10-0 lead.

Thereafter they stopped applying a platform and a structure to their performance.

As the pivot, O'Gara did many things well and though there were a couple of awry passes some of his distribution was superb.

While he'll never be a big-hitting number 10, he did lead the tackle count with 13, evidence of how he was targeted in defence and came through it. He also landed six out of seven kicks for a haul of 16 points, his only miss being from almost halfway.

O'Gara was not helped by the slowness of the ruck ball or Gareth Cooper's pass, or perhaps the demands from those outside, and if he and the other team leaders - Michael Owen particularly - were to reproach themselves it would be that they didn't apply more structure to the Lions' performance. That was until O'Gara took the bull by the horns and kicked to the corners in the final 20 minutes, by which stage he'd been made captain.

Running hard and straighter than he has sometimes been wont to do, and often using his trademark step inside off his left foot, Gavin Henson always looked the man most likely to make something happen and did so with a brace of identikit tries.

First he took slow ball and stepped inside centre Faolua Muliaina before taking Aarron Dempsey's tackle to reach out for the line one-handed.

Similarly, in the 53rd minute, he restored the Lions' lead when taking good go-forward ball from O'Gara after strong mauling by John Hayes, Gordon Bulloch and Sheridan and again drove into Muliaina's tackle to reach out one-handed.

Another one-handed offload to Tom Shanklin after running into two tacklers was a gem, but in his patent desire to make big hits he made several body charges without using his arms, obliging others to finish off his work and belatedly conceding a three-pointer for it as well.

Overall this scrappy effort also underlined, as so often happens, the strangely vast discrepancy that can come about between a first and second-choice Lions team. A partly mental thing, good players looked bad ones in Invercargill last night, but then again, ones who shouldn't have been picked were exposed.

Andy Titterrell, who was always a questionable choice above the more physical Mefin Davies, was awry with his throwing, especially when he went long, and for all his desire to get his hands on the ball wide out was frequently turned over in possession like a rag doll.

Admittedly Gareth Cooper was up against Southland's best player, Jimmy Cowan, but his lightweight physique and tendency to take a step or two before every pass again made it hard to fathom how he was picked ahead of the Scottish second-choice scrumhalf, Mike Blair.

Few of the forwards did much around the pitch and captain for the night Michael Owen again showed some deft handwork, but amid so much backrow dynamism in this country once more looked relatively ponderous in such company.

You felt sorry for the players who'd harboured genuine Test ambitions being exposed to such an awful display, and many of them were compelled, either consciously or subconsciously, to play for themselves. Even some of Geordan Murphy's decision-making on the ball was not of its normal sharpness, and though he took some excellent lines and struck the ball well, this may be a by-product of being consigned to second-string status unless he had proverbial blinders. Similar edginess and indecision hurt the likes of Ollie Smith and Denis Hickie.

Nor could conditions be remotely held to blame down in the southernmost rugby tip of the South Island. Foreboding forecasts of the Lions getting changed in igloos and all of us converging on Rugby Park Stadium in thermals and woolly hats proved unfounded. Under a full-moonlit night, deemed "a balmy five degrees" by the local cognoscenti, there was hardly a gust of wind, rain or even fog or dew in the air.

Kelvin Deaker's high penalty count of 25, a dozen against the Lions, seemed harsh several times against the tourists and said everything about the way Southland were continually going to ground at the breakdown - Muliaina and David Hall were diving headlong into a ruck, from the side, fully 75 minutes into the match.

In mitigation too, not only have they been consigned to their fate but many of this side were fronting up for the second time in 72 hours, with a travel day in between. But if, in style or substance, this is remotely similar to what the Lions Test side produce on Saturday, then they're goosed.

SCORING SEQUENCE: 6 mins: O'Gara pen 0-3; 13: Henson try, O'Gara con 0-10; 18: Apanui pen 3-10; 40: Apanui pen 3-10; Half-time: 3-10; 46: T-Pole try, Apanui con 10-10; 53: Henson try, O'Gara con 10-17; 60: O'Gara pen 10-20; 65: Apanui pen 13-20; 73: O'Gara pen 13-23; 75: Apanui pen 16-23; 82: O'Gara pen 16-26.

SOUTHLAND: J Wilson; M Harrison, B Milne, F Muliaina, W Lotawa; R Apanui, J Cowan; C Dermody (capt), J Rutledge, A Dempsey, H Macdonald, D Quate, H Tamariki, H T-Pole, P Miller. Replacements: J Wright for Miller (38 mins), D Hall for Rutledge (50 mins), J Murch for Dempsey (57 mins), R Logan for Tamariki (75 mins).

LIONS: G Murphy (Ireland); M Cueto (England), O Smith (England), G Henson (Wales), D Hickie (Ireland); R O'Gara (Ireland), G Cooper (Wales); M Stevens (England), A Titterrell (England), J Hayes (Ireland), S Shaw (England), D O'Callaghan (Ireland), L Moody (England), M Williams (Wales), M Owen (Wales, capt). Replacements: A Sheridan (England) for Stevens (half-time), T Shanklin (Wales) for Smith (48 mins), G Bulloch (Scotland) for Titterrell, C Cusiter (Scotland) for Cooper (both 49 mins), S Easterby (Ireland) for Owen (67 mins), G D'Arcy (Ireland) for Murphy (75 mins). Not used: C Hodgson (England).

Referee: Kelvin Deaker (New Zealand).