The Lions test side won’t risk spinning the ball wide

Until the midweek Lions took free rein and stunned me by spreading the ball at Hamilton, I didn't think they had any champagne rugby in them.

Stephen Donald renewed my confidence in the All Blacks to get the job done on Saturday.

No, it wasn’t Beaver’s muddling chip kicks against the impenetrable Lions brick wall on Tuesday, but his response afterwards when asked how the All Blacks will fare at Eden Park. ‘‘They’ll be right,’’ he said. He knew the difference between what was a young and virtual Chiefs B side and the big boys in black.

Until the midweek Lions took free rein and stunned me by spreading the ball at Hamilton, I didn’t think they had any champagne rugby in them.

It’s doubtful the Lions’ test team will risk going wide and after their ugly if suffocating win at Rotorua, I felt pressed to write silly stuff such as the following.

A Kiwi rugby devotee asked his doctor for something to get him to sleep.

‘‘You don’t need a pill,’’ said the doc. ‘‘You need to watch the Lions.’’

Last weekend we saw two completely contrasting versions of the game – the All Blacks spinning the ball providing entertainment and the Lions with the most boring snorefest at Rotorua.

Granted, we must commend their rugged defence and be thankful that elsewhere they are more conservative than Theresa May.

Sky’s commentators, notably the verbose Justin Marshall and Jeff Wilson, praised the onedimensional Lions to the hilt at Rotorua. Marshall too often takes the enemy side and forgets he is working on New Zealand television.

Straight after that NZ Maori clash last Saturday, I switched to watch Wests Tigers playing Cronulla because I wanted to see what a football looked like.

The mauling Lions had had the ball encased in their bellies safely out of eyesight at Rotorua, until the equally boring Conor Murray hoisted his box kicks.

The Lions owned close to 70 per cent of possession and yet managed only two tries, one of which was a penalty try. Had that been any New Zealand team with such a mountain of ball, they would have knocked up 60.

The New Zealand under-20s did just that in Georgia when they routed a burly England team whose idea of going wide, same as the Lions’ top team, was to feed a one-off runner.

Have the Lions had a quick lineout throw all tour?

No way was Rotorua ever a fourth test. My forecast that the Maori would be whacked was based on how their tight five was munted in Europe last year, and so it proved.

Akira Ioane was the sole forward to star and he is a future All Black of Ardie Savea proportions.

Our Otere Black can be thankful he wasn’t involved, other than in the haka. Nehe Milnerskudder obviously was on the wing under All Blacks’ orders, but should have been at fullback, where James Lowe was out of position and got the jitters.

Samoa wasn’t the best preparation for the All Blacks because the Samoans attacked them for the first half hour as a New Zealand team would. The ABS needed front-end loaders coming at them.

In the end, too many of the Samoan tighties ran out of puff.

British Sky Sports analyst Will Greenwood at Rotorua was a hoot, praying for ‘‘rain, rain, rain’’ come the test match on Saturday.

The All Blacks will more than match the Lions at scrum and lineout and just might bang the ball into the corners and even play the Lions at their own game with high hoists. It definitely won’t be an ambush Chicago style.

Schools rugby lopsided

The time has come for schools of the ilk of Palmerston North Boys’ High School to take a stand.

The way things are, their first XV will never win the Super 8 competition, not by picking the team solely from within their school ranks.

Others in the same boat as Boys’ High probably are Gisborne, Napier and New Plymouth boys’ high schools and Tauranga Boys’ College.

But too many schools turn up with rugby teams that are really recruited academy sides, spending money on rugby better used for schooling.

On Saturday, when the Hamilton BHS first XV belted Boys’ High’s by 76-6, even Hamilton’s men off the bench looked like superstars.

I was told that even their colts team had six scholarship players. This should not be what rugby is about.

All right, the boys’ high tackling fell off alarmingly in the past two games, but against Hamilton they had virtual men storming at and over them.

Other than defaulting to the super school teams, as some schools do in Sydney, the situation seems out of control.