Lions Tour/Five lessons for Lions to learn: Clive Woodward's arrival home at Heathrow yesterday morning was rather more subdued than in 2003 when thousands converged on the airport and a certain gold cup was part of the England coach's hand luggage.

Now in charge of the Lions he was greeted with polite applause but most of the weary supporters in the arrivals hall had just stepped off flights from New Zealand themselves.

London was basking in summer temperatures, but Woodward had expected a chilly reception as he said his goodbyes to his players and staff after what may be the last major rugby tour he undertakes. But Woodward rejected suggestions the Lions cannot survive in the professional era.

"The Lions is different in the professional age, it is almost a romantic team rather than a built-up team. New Zealand are a very, very good team and it is difficult to bring together four sides very, very quickly," he said.

"It makes it clear a fully professional team will always beat 15 individuals when you only have that amount of preparation time. But when you get the chance you should always go and do it.

"The upsides outweigh the downsides. I still think the Lions is a great concept. The supporters over there were just fantastic. They have all had a great trip and, hopefully, they will do so again in South Africa in four years' time."

There were diplomatic words from the Wales centre Gavin Henson, whose omission from the first Test team was one of Woodward's most controversial selections.

Henson said: "It was a long tour and it was difficult, it wasn't the best weather and we didn't get the results we would have liked but it was a really good experience.

"It was great to be involved with some world-class players, I have learnt a lot and I can't wait to use all that next season. He (Woodward) explained why he didn't pick me and I understood. That's the way it goes, it's a difficult game."

Paul O'Connell insisted the coaches were not to blame for the debacle. "I think we have to take collective responsibility," said the lock, one of the few players to start all three Tests.

"There were mistakes made, but at the same time I think Clive needed players to produce the goods, and myself and other guys haven't done that. It needs to go both ways. Maybe you can point the finger at the coaching staff, but we are all experienced international players and not one of us can hold our hands up and say we've had very good tours.

"The All Blacks were very good, but we were nowhere near. When you look back at the 1997 Lions tour to South Africa there were a lot of stand-out guys, people like Scott Gibbs, Paul Wallace, Matt Dawson, Gregor Townsend and Lawrence Dallaglio.

"We had no real stand-out players. A lot of us just didn't bring our A games with us. In the last two Tests, I've never spilled as much ball in my life. Brian O'Driscoll went in the first Test, and we just had no real inspirational stand-out players to feed off, and it killed us."

But Jeff Probyn, the former England prop who was controversially left out of the last tour to New Zealand 12 years ago, had no doubt where the blame lay.

"Clive has to take the blame. He was the one who made the promises. He asked for total control, got everything he wanted and then promised the Lions would come back victorious," he said.

"He can't now say it was one of the those things that they lost and it was a successful tour, because it clearly wasn't. It was all about winning the Tests. If we'd won, Clive would be telling everybody what a great coach he is.

"He took the credit for England's World Cup success while ignoring all the disappointing performances he presided over in the years before that - the 1999 World Cup failure, all the grand slam misses."

Guardian Service

1 Ensure the Saturday matches in the run-up to the first Test are against Super 12 opposition rather than provincial teams which not only contain a number of semi-professional players but have yet to start their season.

2 Big is not always beautiful. The playing squad of 45 contained too many passengers.

3 The season in Europe needs to be examined. Spanning nine months from the beginning of September, it is simply too long. While everyone talks about player burn-out, no one does anything about it.

4 The Lions need to hit the ground running. Woodward decried his 2001 predecessor, Graham Henry, for inking in his Test side before leaving for Australia, yet it was four matches into the New Zealand tour before Stephen Jones, who occupied the key outhalf position in the first Test, started a match.

5 No more hubris. Woodward's constant references to the Lions party being stronger and better prepared than ever before helped the All Blacks portray themselves as underdogs. It was New Zealand instead who provided the element of surprise by achieving parity up front and dominating the lineout.