Williams and Jack lord the line-outs

WITH a shock of hair sprouting out of the back of his head, Ali Williams strikes a very different profile to the skull-capped bald eagle who stalked the stricken Lions at the lineout.

More of a peacock than a bird of prey, the post-match lock was still standing tall in every respect after the game of his All Blacks career, happy to soak up all the plaudits.

Williams and second row partner Chris Jack outplayed their opposite numbers in the Lions lineout so thoroughly at Jade Stadium on Saturday night that their work could have derailed the tourists’ entire campaign.

The Lions are staring into the abyss after their 21-3 first Test mauling at the hands of Jack and Williams, who topped his magnificent display with the first try of the match, coming from his own steal at the lineout.

It was one of eight lineouts he and his colleague Jack would snaffle from Paul O’Connell, Ben Kay and the very off-colour and off-target hooker Shane Byrne, whose first few throws missed their men and put the Lions on the back foot almost immediately.

“Jack and Williams had outstanding games,” Lions forwards coach Andy Robinson said. “We didn’t read their movements and they were able to read ours but that’s something we’re going to review and sort out this week.”

They better had, because Williams said he would keep doing his homework on them.

“Watching individuals is a big key for us, the people we were marking against. It just came down to everyone watching their own man,” said Williams, who policed Kay for the evening. “We do a lot of study and it was fortunate for us that they’d had a few games more than and so we were able to have a better look, but everyone individually did their own job.

“It’s just a lineout. It’s very simple and you can overcomplicate things.

“Sometimes you get a lot of dominance that makes you (the other side) look stupid and this time they as a whole probably didn’t do all the things exactly right.

The Lions’ lack of cohesion at the lineout was unexpected but Williams said he had not been totally surprised.

“It’s a lot different out there in those conditions and with that noise than it is on the practice ground. Then the whole thing doesn’t run as clockwork as it does on the practice ground.”

The All Blacks had no such problems and forwards coach Steve Hansen said they had targeted the disruption of the Lions set-piece.

“We set out in the game to give them poor quality possession and I think we achieved that. It was a good effort from the boys out there. We felt their front five was something they thought was a strength - and like any strength, you’ve got to attack it. Take that away and they begin to question themselves, so we intended to take that away.”

All of which will have made more uncomfortable listening for Woodward’s right-hand man

“We just got completely outplayed,” Robinson said. “At times we got the communication wrong, we didn’t get players in the air, and on a number of occasions Williams read the movement well. So, ultimately we’ve got to hold our hands up. If we’d have won some ball it might have been a different story.”

It wasn’t only on Lions lineout ball that Robinson was disappointed.

“There was a lack of pressure on them as well. If their lineout functions well then that’s the platform for them to win the game.”

Robinson refuted the suggestion that the All Blacks had cracked the code of the Lions lineout calls. “No, not at all,” he said. “The codes were changed before the game.”

Which is a shame, because that would have at least made the collapse of his lineout specialists just a little more bearable.