“SIMILAR to playing a South African side,” was the brutal response from victorious Blues skipper James Parsons when asked what they had been expecting from the British and Irish Lions at Eden Park.

After a few days that had riled the head coach of the tourists with talk about ‘Warrenball’ tactics, it was a chastening evening in Auckland.

But we haven’t learned anything that we didn’t already know so far in the week that the Lions have been in New Zealand.

We knew that the preparation time was pathetic. We knew that the commercial responsibilities for the cash-making machine would be a hindrance. We knew that every game on the 10-match tour would be tough and that they would be hard pressed to head home with a winning ratio.

The Blues were the lowest ranked of the New Zealand Super Rugby sides this season and on Saturday the Lions face the unbeaten Crusaders. Gulp.

But Gatland and his management team won’t be overly worried, plus the head coach will be more than content to cop some of the flak himself. With a whopping great pay package comes great responsibility.

For all his faults, the Wales boss is a man who creates good environments for his players, recognising the more important things in life.

He is undoubtedly a quality coach – his CV shows that with great success with Wasps and against European rivals on the Test stage – but there are longstanding doubts about whether, after a decade in charge, his management team have passed their shelf life in Wales.

Nonetheless, Gatland is a good man to be master of the ship on the toughest, most unrelenting of tours.

His task is to find a team that can somehow win a Test match against the world champions and he has more tools at his disposal to find a 23 that can finish off the job that his Wales side managed for large portions of the first two internationals against the All Blacks last summer.

He knows that it’s imperative that everyone gets a chance to stake a claim or fluff their lines in the opening few weeks.

He also knows that he has some Test beasts in his ranks in Sam Warburton, Alun Wyn Jones, Owen Farrell, Connor Murray, Maro Itoje, Leigh Halfpenny.

The Lions improved from Saturday to Wednesday, it’s just that the opposition went up a few notches. The same will be the case from Wednesday to Saturday and it could well be that when we tuck into our lunch they will be P3, W1, L2.

What Gatland will demand is that his charges keep on an upward curve, for they are yet to enjoy a period of sustained pressure in 160 minutes of rugby.

They will ratchet it up and the date ringed on the calendar is June 24, more will be unveiled (we hope) as that first Test approaches.

We knew that it would be blood and thunder under Gatland and in truth the schedule has demanded it.

Nor is there anything wrong with going direct with the likes of Ben Teo and George North behind as long as there is a bit of footballing ability and offloading to go with it once over the gain line and space is there.

And more invention is desperately needed because against the Blues there was little more than a strong set piece and a useful driving maul.

The worry is that Rob Howley, whose Wales haven’t exactly dazzled in recent years, is in charge of an attack that has very few training sessions to develop the chemistry to prosper when the game is unstructured (can we please dump that ghastly and nonsensical term ‘rugby chaos’?).

A six-week tour makes it nigh-on impossible to cultivate Joe Schmidt/Gregor Townsend levels of cunning but the Lions have to be slicker and smarter as the days count down to the Eden Park opener.

I’m confident they will be, whether it will be enough is another matter.

South Wales Argus:

THANKFULLY ‘legacy’ wasn’t uttered much in relation to the Champions League final, although perhaps that was just because it’s a word associated with a rival Japanese car manufacturer to one of the sponsors of the tournament.

It seems the done thing to talk about what one-off sporting occasions will do for future generations, the Ryder Cup in Newport, the Olympics, the Ashes in Cardiff.

For some reason it’s dirty to say it’s just going to be a cracking, unique shindig. In truth there’s often precious little bounce and I’m sure it will be the same for what was a tremendous occasion for Wales and predominantly Cardiff last weekend.

The Champions League festival around the Senedd was terrific while the streets near, ahem, National Stadium of Wales were bouncing on matchday.

The event got the game that it deserved before Real Madrid pulled away from Juventus in the second half, but to a grouch like me there was still enough to grumble about.

The joy from Saturday afternoon in the capital came from mixing with Italian and Spanish fans in the sunshine but the Champions League is becoming increasingly like soccer’s Super Bowl.

There’s the bombardment from the sponsors who provided the festival at the Bay then the pre-match nonsense that saw the Black Eyed Peas performing while the players waited in the tunnel.

‘Abide with Me’ it was not.

And then, worst of all, was the post-match scenes in which the turf was invaded by a sea of photographers, interviewers, family and friends of the players, and lanyarded hangers-on. It was a mass of bodies that got in the way of the fans in the stands celebrating with their heroes.

Watch American Football and typical, ridiculous scene is the coach having to force their way through crowds to shake the hands of their opposite number after the game.

But to finish, here’s an especially depressing prediction to about football following the route of NFL: it won’t be long until the owners of clubs are the ones lifting the silverware.