2 Lions games - how do you compare them?

We've had two games so far, and I'm wondering how we go about comparing the Lions players' performances in view of the opposition?

Game 1 was against big international players, many of them world class, although just the like the Lions they have been thrown together with little preparation to work on plays and moves.

Game 2 was against a side with only a few internationals and the rest club players but as a club side they are fairly settled and know the moves as practiced over the course of a season or two. Defensive patterns will have been learned and players will have been familiar with each other.

So which Lions team did better? The one that beat the team full of internationals (baa baas) or the one who beat a club side. Not sure myself. I think the Baa Baas game was better from a Lions point of view.

They both handled the opposition with a touch overkill...which is always good when you play against a less than fully up-to-speed International side. The tendancy might be to beat them and leave it at that...but the machine kept going to get a rhythm set down.

I don't quite see how you'd read that the Baa Baas was 'better from a Lions point of view'. That was a post-jet-lag blowout - today was the first real game in the host Nation territory,with all the media hype and pressure kicking in.

I'd guess both Lions sides are hoping the coach takes both games into account or else its a lot of sweat and effort for nothing.

Depends on what you think these Lions games are for before the tests. How much of Gatland's squad to line up in the first test is finalised in his mind? How much can these games lead to building combinations or building confidence? How much do they not prepare them for the first test? Does the performance or the result matter? Or both in equal terms?

They aren't really comparible opposition wise, so the score will mean little.

From a lions perspective though certain individual performances will lend themselves to test 1 far better than others, but even then it's all perspective.

Gatland will probably be looking at non oppositional responses from the players first 3 games, players who last 80 minutes, those who portray his orders best and those who buy into the gameplan better than others.

He'll have a structure and gameplan in his head, and has picked a squad to execute it, he now has to make calls on which players provide the best options and which units works better.

Have to say though, Stevens looks a mile from test level, he has come on twice to flop around and do nothing of note, I worry about saturday if he starts!

Lions team today didn't look a Wallabies beater in my opinion. The one that played the Ba ba's nearly did. After 20 mins in that game, lots of good try scoring opportunities had been created, but a lot failed due to slippy conditions. In dry weather, i like to think that they would have scored a lot more tries.

Today I think the goal kicking was epic, the individual performance of some players such as Heaslip, Tuilagi, Vunipola, AWj was excellent. But the creativity was lacking at times. A lot of tries came from hard work rather than skill. That sort of play vs Wallabies will earn them far less points in my opinion and they'll be knackered! It all looked a bit too predictable, too flat. The wallabies will be mixing up their play a lot more using chip kicks, grubbers, cross field kicks, inside passes, offloads. I saw bugger all of that today from the Lions. Only sexton really had a go at it, playing his natural game. Today's performance encouraged me. I think if the Wallabies can contain the likes of Heaslip, Gray, POC, Tuilagi etc, then they'll be able to enforce their creative style of rugby on the Lions and really put them under pressure. The way the Force managed to gain momentum and score trys from so little ball was also very encouraging. Especially considering their poor backline. If the wallabies forwards do the same, combined with their decent backline, I can see try's being scored.

I think the key for Gatland is to inject some more creativity into his Welsh starting side. I would swap..

Evans for Gray

AWJ for POC

Faletau for Heaslip

Sexton

Davies for BOD (maybe, but either are good options)

Cuthbert for Maitland (maybe, but either are good options)

Halfpenny for Hogg

These changes provide more attacking opportunities for the Lions, more chances to boss the Wallabies in all areas of the field. However, gatland may well want to simply not allow Australia to play their natural game by refusing to front up in that area. i think that would be silly, because Australia, as they have show time and time again, will always find that cheeky phase of play that will win them the game. You cannot prevent Australia from creating something marvellous, therefore the Lions in my opinion, have to create their own beautiful phases of play.

The set piece went a lot better on Saturday

Player put their hands up today, but the better collective performance was against the Baabaas (with 11 starting welsh players that makes sense)

Bit concerned about the defence around the fringes of the ruck today. It is all very well the back row looking good with ball in hand but if we don't defend that properly (SOB flying out of the line on 1st try, for example) the Wallabies will murder us.

From the 2 games so far (ignoring anyone who hasn't played yet) I would have:

Vunipola
Hibbard
Jones
AWJ
Gray
Lydiate
Tipuric
Heaslip
Phillips
Sexton
North
Roberts
BOD
Bowe
Halfpenny

Wandering,

Just started a thread on similar and we have few differences in our sides:

I went for

POC with AWJ
SOB over Lydiate and that hurt me as said I would always start Dan
Cuthbert over North

Set peice was marginally better on Saturday but the Lions played better today and there were less handling errors. Conditions didnt help v the BaBas. Positives and negatives from both games.

wanderingdragon wrote:Bit concerned about the defence around the fringes of the ruck today. It is all very well the back row looking good with ball in hand but if we don't defend that properly (SOB flying out of the line on 1st try, for example) the Wallabies will murder us.

From the 2 games so far (ignoring anyone who hasn't played yet) I would have:

Vunipola
Hibbard
Jones
AWJ
Gray
Lydiate
Tipuric
Heaslip
Phillips
Sexton
North
Roberts
BOD
Bowe
Halfpenny

Would swap POC in for AWJ and Davies for BOD (BOD looked good but the Roberts/Davies partnership looked better). The rest I would go with although had 1/2p not been kicking would have been Hogg at FB.