This of course was obliterated within a matter of seconds of the restart when Joe Roff intercepted Wilkinson’s pass

This, of course, was obliterated within a matter of seconds of the restart when Joe Roff intercepted Wilkinson’s pass. For the first time the Wallabies began to look and play like world champions.Other factors conspired to undermine Martin Johnson’s dream of back-to-back series victories, following South Africa four years ago. There was the loss through injury of a core of England’s in-form players, in particular Lawrence Dallaglio. Quinnell was prominent in the first two Tests but he does not have Dallaglio’s line-out presence. Deprived for the most part of the option of throwing to the tail, the Lions’ line-out was severely compromised And predictable. And the Wallabies proceeded to climb all over Johnson and Danny Grewcock with double marking.

With the line-out in trouble, the Lions failed to exploit the attacking edge of Brian O’Driscoll and Jason Robinson.Then there was the goal-kicking of Wilkinson. For England his strike-rate is not far short of 100 per cent; in Australia it wasn’t much more than 60 per cent. The leg injury which saw him taken off on a stretcher in the second Test did nothing to improve his confidence.The loss of Richard Hill was another big blow. He was taken out with an elbow by Nathan Grey which was not only head-high but off the ball. David Gray, the citing commissioner from New Zealand, saw no cause for action, which was one of the more extraordinary decisions of the tour.However, the Lions could not yell too loudly from the moral high ground after Quinnell and Rob Henderson had hit Stephen Larkham high and late in the same match, putting the stand-off out of the third Test.In the extracurricular category were the forays into broadsheet journalism of Matt Dawson and Austin Healey, the former criticising the style of the Lions management, the latter almost everything Australian, including the new second-row Justin Harrison. You may not agree with what they said, but you could argue they had a right to say it.What was indefensible was the timing of the outbursts, Dawson’s on the eve of the first Test, Healey’s on the eve of the decider. Had Clive Woodward been in charge he would have sent them home.

It became open season for the snipers but, as Henry pointed out: “You always get people who grizzle on a tour like this and they tend to come from the ranks of those who aren’t in the Test team.”The New Zealander, the first coach to oversee a Lions series defeat Down Under, added: “I think the newspaper comments had an importance. The team should come first, and those who choose to criticise people within the group are not doing what they should be doing. It is a question of personal judgement, and mine is that you don’t want to destroy the fabric of your own team. I’m amazed that a player should have given the opposition the ammunition they needed.

I’m not sure what Austin thought he was trying to achieve, but effectively it was a free team-talk for the Wallabies.”Naturally Harrison, described by Healey as an “ape”, looked in the third Test like the King of the Jungle. The Lions management failed in their bid to vet the players’ columns, but then everybody was also aware that Henry was writing a book, and if the examples of Glenn Hoddle and Mark James are anything to go by, it is not the wisest course of action.In the postscript, Henry and the manager, Donal Lenihan, envisage changes to the structure of future tours. “It may be that the way forward is to take a smaller group of players, 28 rather than 37, and play fewer games, perhaps three warm-up matches followed by three Tests,” Henry said. “The midweek matches in Australia were particularly difficult and I felt sorry for the players involved. They had to put up with inadequate preparation and it was unfair. These are professionals who are used to building properly through the week for a weekend match We couldn’t offer them that because of the itinerary. Where, in the professional era, are we going to find the time to prepare a Lions party as thoroughly as we would like?”The problem was exacerbated in Australia because, with only three Super 12 teams, some of the matches were one-sided affairs against amateurs.