Ronan O'Gara: New Zealand strength-in-depth too much for Lions

Ronan O'Gara's second of three Lions tours was in the darkest imaginable New Zealand winter. So, he has a feel for it.

“The thing about it is it’s play, recover, play,” said O’Gara. “Sure a lot of us know from 2005, it’s a tough place to go. They are the best in the world and they have a phenomenal pool of talent. I think you kind of have to taste it for yourself to see what messages you take out of it.

"I think obviously they [the Lions] are going to get a hammering if they don't win games before the first Test, but the first Test will become a different animal altogether. I think the Lions have some really good players in some positions but they don't have the strength-in-depth that New Zealand rugby have. That's blatantly obvious."

It seems impossible, an insurmountable task to win the series.

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“Yeah I would agree. Getting into contention has to be their goal first but that looks difficult. They just have such balance when you look at their backrow and their centres and the front row is awesome.

“But then, if they get an injury or two you don’t know. It looks like New Zealand should comfortably do it but it’s a case of whether the Lions could go one or two ways, they could buckle completely or else they could come up with a stand but it doesn’t look like the combinations are particularly gelling. There’s a lot of hesitancy in terms of their attack game.

“Even from Johnny [Sexton’s] point of view the other day, he didn’t know when he was getting the ball and I’d say it’s hard, it’s very different from what he’s used to because everything would be a lot clearer so I think they definitely have work to do on the attack side of the game.”