Blues v BI Lions

I saw the Lions vs Qld 4 years ago and they certainly looked in much better nick than this lot. Then again the Lions had North and the Reds had Kwade.

What I found quite heartening for the ABs was that the Blues weren't bashed around and pretty much held their own physically. My greatest fear before the tests is the Lions outmuscling us.

So, how many of these Lions will make the starting team? I wasn't at all impressed with the backrow and am even more glad they decided to leave Van Der Flier home even if he was short of a gallop.

Tim

Few of those backs, I'd hope.

Blues loose forward trio is very underrated, and certainly all the Blues players are better than their counterparts. Even Gibson. Haskell is shite.

Crazy Horse

Anyone else getting the feeling the Lions are holding back in the scrums? I expected them to dominate in that area against the Baa Baas and to a lessor extent against the Blues. I know they won a few penalties but to me they didn't look like they were trying that hard at times last night. Like they were content to just hold own.

Bovidae

A comment I read said they have been surprised not to be awarded some penalties when a scrum has collapsed as the refs (so far) have been happy to let play continue if the ball is at the no.8s feet.

The Lions scrum won't be able to hold back against the Crusaders.

Rapido

@Crazy-Horse said in Blues v BI Lions:

Anyone else getting the feeling the Lions are holding back in the scrums? I expected them to dominate in that area against the Baa Baas and to a lessor extent against the Blues. I know they won a few penalties but to me they didn't look like they were trying that hard at times last night. Like they were content to just hold own.

Interesting.
They dominated last night when the respective subs came on, which is totally expected.

Starting front rows didn't really budge, but yeah I didn't recall much weight going on. Plenty of collapses though.

Tim

@Rapido Blues consecutively had three of the Lions' defensive scrums going a bit backwards, which was a big surprise.

Rapido

It's a very interesting question, as the reason why the Lions should be such a challenge for NZ when/if they sort out their new team cohesion is the depth of the subs.

In a perfect world B Vuniopla gets subbed by Faletau at 60 minutes. Kruis subbed by AWJ, Furlong gets subbed by 'insert next best tighthead in British Isles'

That's a step up from AWJ getting subbed by Gethin from Pontypridd.

The 'All Blacks are fitter" thing is IMO lazy journalism (even if they actually are), as a huge part of NZ pulling away in the last 20 is our depth and therefore quality of our 8 subs v other less blessed nations. In this 23 man game rugby has become.

The Lions bench props not dominating the NZPB bench props in game 1 was quite astounding.

Some foxing would be a cool twist.

The Silver Fern

Blues v BI Lions