There has been an awful lot of hype around this Lions squad and their opportunity for greatness. I have to say, they may be brought down to earth with a real bump on Saturday. The tour has not gained any momentum and they have played some under strength teams along the way

Can’t read anything into the Brumbies game from a test perspective as none of the players will be featuring but I guess what you can read into it is that the second string team from the whole British Iles can’t beat the second string team from an Aussie province (worrying)

Regarding the test teams, a lot of noise is being made of the quality of the Lions backs and wingers in particular but many Lions fans are underestimating the Wallaby backs. North is a real quality player but Cuthbert is a weak link in defence and in Digby Ioane and Israel Falou the Aussies have two very physical wingers who are every bit as good as the Lions going forward. Add to that the fact that Jonathan Davies in the centres has the worst passing game of any professional rugby centre I have ever seen and I don’t expect the Lions wings to get too many chances

Looks to me like the Lions are looking to boss the game in the forwards and win the thing through territory and penalties – could work but if the game opens up at all I think the Aussies may pull them apart

You're right - the Aussies will take them to the cleaners if they manage to turn the game into anything more than a forwards-based grind fest. The Lions lack of creativity was severely exposed at Canberra.

Then again, we can't look past the fact that the backs had barely trained together and included a veteran playing pub footy in Japan. They'll go better next time.

The Lions have lost to provincial sides in the past and then won the tour - cannot write them off yet.

Aussies are 8/1 to win 3-0. I am very tempted by that

That might be good for the ARU but the home nations may see it differently. If they are playing weekend mid week teams that do nothing too help prepare for the tests, are no contest and leading to large numbers of injuries. . That allied to national tours, league games, 6 nations,heineken cup etc means the the top players are playing a lot of games and not having much of a rest. That appears to be taking a toll with lots of players retiring due to injury etc.
I could see the home nations saying it is not worth it

Israel Folau first try scorer tomorrow at 12/1 is tempting

This Folau kid looks great, could do a job in League for sure.

What's next for Folau, he's played League, AFL and now union. Can the Aussies still draft him into the Ashes cricket squad?

Well the Lions won, but the Australians should have.
Some very disturbing lack of tackling from the Lions in the first half down our left wing ... what the fook was Mike Phillips doing for Australia's first try????
Standing off tackles instead of moving forward to tackle.
Standing still instead of running in to receive the pass on attack.
Very basic errors, very poor!
How many kicks did Australia miss ... four or five?
We missed one.
No brainer, they deserved to win.
But I think we are a better side, but once again led by people that are too conservative.

It felt throughout the game like Australia would blow us away any moment if they just stepped up a gear, but it never happened. Lions have to improve, but they could do it.

Hungover In Brisbane with 4 days to kill till origin and this is not a cheap town to drink in!
Best team lost last night........fear of losing is killing the lions

Five changes to the Lions side for the second Test.

Although some enforced by injury, an acknowledgement from Gatland that they got out of jail last Saturday?

Shocking second test IMO, good tension but quality-wise abysmal. Perfectly set up for the decider though..

I was out training so Sky Plussed it. Managed to fast forward through all the standing around waiting for scrums, lineouts and goal kicking... just emphasised how little actual rugby is played, the whole game took me about 15 minutes to watch

I think the Lions had to take this one, the Aussies will be feeling the momentum build going to Sydney, the Lions will have a tough time there I think

This is by no means a great Aussie side but when it comes to playing attacking rugby they're still miles better than anything the Northern Hemisphere can come up with. They're execution was poor though and they should have scored a few more tries. As usual all the emphasis is on the scrum and the set piece in general with the British sides, they don't seem to grasp the fact that you actually have to score points to win a game of rugby, and as soon as it became clear the Aussies could match the Lions in the scrum there was only ever going to be one winner.

If Warburton is injured then I really fear for the Lions chances, for me Tuilangi (sp) has to play if he's fit as the Lions' midfield is offering nothing at the moment.

The refereeing of the scrum at elite level has degenerated into a lottery. The whole game the Aussie tight head (Alexander) was driving in diagonally between Tom Youngs and Vunipola making it impossible for the Lions prop to bind on him properly.

The first couple of times he did it, Vunipola got penalised. He did it again twice in the second half, and got penalised himself.

People have a pop at the likes of Brian Moore for continually banging on about scrums, but something seriously needs to be done. Back to the soft engage and preventing pushing before the ball goes in that existed back in the amateur era?

To be honest I've always felt the only reason they have scrums in RU is give the fat blokes something to do during a game.

Watched a couple of club games on Saturday afternoon as part of a fund raiser. Premiers and 1sts........not 1 re-set scrum in 160 minutes of Rugby. I'll add that the games were more entertaining than most of the dross that S15 has thrown up this year.

The Scrum at top level/international level needs a total overhaul IMHO.....

In other news, New Zealand are both mens and womens 7's world champions after winning their respective world cups in front of a few thousand puzzled Russians.

I've always said that the higher the standard of Union, the worse that it is to watch. And does anyone actually like 7's? I just can't take it seriously, the fact that it's an Olympic sport is a joke.

If you look at it positively, 7s produces some breathtaking tries, but it is difficult to take it seriously at all. Not sure why they played it in Russia in the 80k seater soccer stadium, looked bloody awful on TV. There's plenty of countries in Europe with much more rugby interest that they could have used, but money talks I guess.

The Lions seem to have approached this series with the view that if they dominate in the forwards they'll inevitably win. But the scrums have been a lottery and if they insist on countless phases of forward possession without actually doing anything they inevitably end up turning over the ball.

I enjoyed the first game but the 2nd test was ruined by the time taken out at the scrums.

I'm guessing that at that level there's very little force going through the engagement, and little separation between the touch and engage calls?

Go back to allowing both props to have hold of each other before coming together, and you'll have a much more stable scrum to put the ball into.

Hallelujah.

Poster up in Morley RFC last night advertising the introduction of new "crouch, bind, set" procedures to be introduced as experimental laws from the start of the next NH season at all levels.

Props will have a bind on their opposite number before the hit, hopefully creating a more stable platform so the scrum half can get the ball straight in.

Gatland appears to have become more and more estranged throughout this tour. Absolutely mystifying team selection today.

The wingers might as well bring a deck-chair with them, no way are they getting the ball with that centre partnership.

Bit surprised he hasn't stuck Tuilagi at full back, make it the biggest back line in the history of world rugby.

While I agree with the O'Driscoll decision (a poor two games so far), I'm struggling to see what Davies brings to the party either. The skill set of northern hemisphere centres has been completely eroded by the insistence on playing a ten-man game at domestic level, to the point where they are little more than extra back rowers designed to batter across the gain line.