Lions Tour/Bay of Plenty 20 The Lions 34: At first brilliant, then almost verging on awful, the Lions eventually came through strongly and even clinically.
As opening nights go, there have been worse performances by Lions sides, far worse, and in the heel of the hunt the primary objective was achieved. But the cost was potentially incalculable.
He would never admit it publicly, and perhaps has too positive a mentality to even countenance it, but one wonders would Clive Woodward have traded even the psychological damage of a defeat in Rotorua on Saturday for having Lawrence Dallaglio fit and well.
"The whole party knows that Lawrence is out and that we do need one or two players to step forward in terms of leadership," said the head coach.
"I thought (Paul) O'Connell did have an outstanding game, especially once Lawrence had gone off, especially in the second half; I thought the leadership of himself and O'Gara was fantastic.
"No, we lose a top player and someone else has got to step into his shoes and I was especially pleased with O'Connell."
It's a tough, almost impossible act replacing Dallaglio's leadership. No one person can do it, but for O'Connell to even come close he's going to have replicate his second-half performance (taking over from Dallaglio as vice-captain) as chief yardage hauler and more, with the best rugby of his young life to date.
Richard Hill, Ben Kay and Martin Corry assumed more leadership, although possibly the danger in that (as in the second quarter) is that there can be too many voices.
But Woodward will also want Neil Back to return in vintage form, for without Johnson and now Dallaglio, there are few leaders with any experience of beating New Zealand. Certainly no Celts have for generations, not since the 1950s.
And my, how New Zealand is up for this! On a perfectly still, dry night, the NZ and Bay of Plenty unions put on a great show.
The grassy banks were stuffed, parties gathering on the balconies of surrounding houses under a floodlit night sky.
A stunning Maori pre-match segment of Vivaldi's Four Seasons greeted the Lions, perhaps in an attempt to lull them into a torpor, before some pounding dance music heralded the arrival of the home heroes.
As Eddie O'Sullivan observed, the Lions almost hit the ground too hard, the three-try, 17-point haul in the first 13 minutes coming straight off the training ground with not one handling error or mistake.
That segment of the game, and the backline's potency, angles of running and execution, reflected well on O'Sullivan.
He seems to be revelling in this environment, as hinted at in his central positioning and assured performances on the podium for press conferences.
Bringing on Gordon D'Arcy and switching Brian O'Driscoll to outside centre in reuniting the Irish 10-12-13 axis was described by Woodward as "a good call by Eddie" and resulted in Lewsey cutting through off Ronan O'Gara's pass in between the centres' decoy runs for D'Arcy's supporting try.
Lewsey's overall game and his lines of running and opportunism for the first two tries had already made you wonder how he hasn't always been the English fullback. He'll be the Lions number 15 anyway.
Then the Bay, helped by O'Gara falling off a tackle on Nili Latu (who eclipsed Martyn Williams), were given an opening back into the game and until half-time the wheels threatened to fall off completely.
Even O'Driscoll, hitting rucks galore and possibly overly keen, missed two tackles either side of O'Gara falling off another in the build-up to the second Bay try.
The defensive alignment in the 10-12-13 axis often seemed askew. Pointedly, when discussing Gavin Henson's performance, Woodward made mention of Phil Larder rectifying glitches in the defensive system at half-time and there were only two missed tackles in the second half to add to the nine of the first period.
Indeed, half-time seemed to work well. The Lions regrouped. When in doubt, O'Gara kicked superbly to the corners, while the running threat remained.
Some of the media corps clearly thought Woodward and O'Sullivan protested too much in their praise of O'Gara, for undoubtedly he was one of the prime culprits in the defensive errors.
Such lapses can't be afforded at this level, not down here, not with so many Kiwis, Maoris and Polynesians running dynamically and straight. And there'll be more explosive collisions to come.
Unfortunately, with so many tries scored in the corners, O'Gara missed four of six conversions and a drop goal.
It was a shame, because in his running and kicking out of hand, he was superb. He gave the final pass for two of the tries and the cross-kick for another, and his distribution was a key component of two more.
Henson put in some big hits and showed some lovely touches with the ball: the second-half pick-up from O'Driscoll and one-handed offload in the tackle, the visionary skip pass that would have put Tom Shanklin over for his second try had he held it.
It was a good night for the beefy boys in the English front-row - Steve Thompson and Andy Sheridan joined the fray in the final quarter and almost propelled the Bay of Plenty scrum onto the grassy banks for scrumhalf Dwayne Peel to adroitly claim his try.
It was a surprise that the Lions repeatedly opted for off-the-top lineout ball and went wide rather than trying to turn the screw by imposing their maul. Perhaps they're keeping their powder dry.
But the other major area of concern was the tackle or breakdown area. It's all well and good committing pods of three or four to rucks, but such is the general ferocity of the collision area down here that there'll have to be times when they commit more, and certainly with more intensity and physical aggression.
If, come the Tests, turnovers are committed on the same scale as in Rotorua we may as well all go home now.
This first run-out will have sharpened up the Lions some more, but heavens above, the sharpening is badly needed.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 2 mins: Lewsey try 0-5; 11: Lewsey try 0-10; 13: Cueto try, O'Gara con 0-17; 17: Bourke try, Williams con 7-17; 40: Williams pen 10-17; 40 (+3): Williams try, con 17-17 (half-time 17-17); 53: Shanklin try 17-22; 59: Williams pen 20-22; 73: Peel try 20-27; 80: D'Arcy try, O'Gara con 20-34.
BAY OF PLENTY: A Cashmore; F Bolavucu, A Bunting, G McQuoid, A Tahana; M Williams, K Senio; S Davison, A Lutui, B Castle, M Sorenson, B Upton, W Ormond (capt), N Latu, C Bourke. Replacements: W Smith for Bourke (46 mins), A Stewart for Bolavucu (50 mins). Not used: J Pareanga, T Filise, P Tupai, C Hubbard, R Moon.
LIONS: J Lewsey (England); M Cueto (England), B O'Driscoll (Ireland, capt), G Henson (Wales), T Shanklin (Wales); R O'Gara (Ireland), D Peel (Wales); G Jenkins (Wales), G Bulloch (Scotland), M Stevens (England), P O'Connell (Ireland), B Kay (England), R Hill (England), M Williams (Wales), L Dallaglio (England). Replacements: M Corry (England) for Dallaglio (25 mins), S Thompson (England) for Bulloch, A Sheridan (England) for Stevens (both 67 mins), G D'Arcy (Ireland) for Henson (71 mins), M Dawson (England) for Shanklin (79 mins). Not used: D O'Callaghan (Ireland), C Hodgson (England).
Referee: Paul Honiss (New Zealand).
