Lions player ratings: Springboks win error battle in game defined by box kicks

This was not a game for people who liked free-flowing attacking rugby. The first half alone was one hour and three minutes long - the exact length of Rassie Erasmus’ infamous video, weirdly enough

The British & Irish Lions' Jack Conan comes up against Damian de Allende of South Africa. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

When the whistle went for the kick-off, a sense of relief washed over the game as a whole. Or maybe that was just me. Once that whistle went the nonsense of the build-up was over and, man, there was some real nonsense this week. 

The Lions have always carried a sense of prestige about them, rightly or wrongly. Maybe I’m buying into the marketing hype there but the one thing the Lions have always brought is a sense of scale.