Come Wednesday, when they play the Auckland Blues, the rust will hopefully have been knocked off the Lions. The Blues will ask some far tougher questions than those posed by the Provincial Barbarians on Saturday.
It's a Blues side which could feature the likes of Rene Ranger, George Moala and maybe even Sonny Bill Williams. Warren Gatland's side struggled to victory on Saturday against opposition with nowhere near as much top level rugby experience.
Speaking after Saturday's game, Gatland, quoted by The Telegraph, said that he would have preferred a full week in New Zealand for his side to prepare. Instead, they got just three days having arrived in the country on Wednesday.
Gatland said that a number of his 41-man squad are still struggling with jet lag. They also had sponsorship commitments which forced some players to sit in a car for five hours on Friday.
We ran the non-23 players this morning and they had a real blow-out because a number of them are still struggling to sleep. So we knew it was going to be difficult in terms of adjusting to that and preparing in such a short period. Ross Moriarty has got a back spasm, and so has Kyle Sinckler.
We did community stuff yesterday where the guys have been sitting in cars for five hours, coming up (to Whangarei) and are probably still recovering from the effects of that flight as well.
The Lions' schedule for this tour has received plenty of criticism. Graham Henry, who was All Blacks head coach when they swept the Lions 12 years ago, called it 'suicidal'.
Gatland added that players and coaching staff, despite taking sleeping pills, have struggled to get some shut-eye.
I hope so, some players have recovered but others are still seeing the doctor, as are the coaching staff with Andy Farrell down in the team room at 4am this morning despite taking a sleeping pill at 11pm last night to try to get some sleep. You’ve got to try and adjust as quickly as possible and we hope over the next couple of days that everyone gets into a cycle so as to feel fresh and acclimatised.
