WHEN Bill Beaumont gets to write his report on the Lions’ ill-fated tour of New Zealand, let’s hope he does a bit better than his performance at a packed press conference at Eden Park.

"I have come out of the dressing room with a lot of disappointed players, coaches and staff, but every one of them has said they wouldn’t have changed a thing and that they had a great rugby experience, he said immediately after the Lions’s 3-0 Test series humiliation.

“From my point of view, I look back and ask: What would we have changed?’ Obviously we would have liked to have won The Test’ series and we are very disappointed we didn’t. But there is nothing I would change, except for us to have won the Test series”

So he would have Stuck with the appointment of Alastair Campbell as media consultant? He’s happy with the performance of a man who cynically manufactured a situation where Gavin Henson was the unwitting participant in a picture staged to defuse claims of a row between himself and coach Sir Clive Woodward
Henson was rock bottom after being left out of the side for the first Test. Yet Campbell didn’t even have the decency to ask for his permission that a photo be taken that would make out everything was hunky-dory.

Instead, an agency photographer skulking behind a car snapped the shot of Henson chatting to Woodward.
The ridiculous Campbell also riled the All Blacks with his handling of the Tana Umaga-Brian O’Driscoll episode and had the gall to moan that the British rugby journalists in New Zealand missed an opportunity for him to give them ideas for
stories.

No, Beaumont should have admitted to the folly of Campbell’s appointment and also tackled the central issue of whether the Lions can balance their great traditions as a touring team with the requirement of being competitive in Tests.
Do we now head into a situation where the tourists Play a warmup and three Tests, as suggested by Dai Young this week? Or do we do as Woodward proposed and play games on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays? (Nurse! Sedate that man quickly)