Jonathan Davies: Loss of Lawrence just one of the worries

If the Lions are going to make a success of this tour they must be more aggressive and have absolute belief in themselves. With that in mind the last thing they needed was to lose Lawrence Dallaglio. It is a shattering blow.

If the Lions are going to make a success of this tour they must be more aggressive and have absolute belief in themselves. With that in mind the last thing they needed was to lose Lawrence Dallaglio. It is a shattering blow.

The main reason Lawrence went on the tour was for his leadership skills and his immense presence off the field. He is the epitome of the high confidence and self-belief the Lions want and would have been the ideal link between players and coaches.

If it had been feasible I'm sure Clive Woodward would have given serious consideration to keeping Lawrence in New Zealand for these reasons. Now they will have to get by without him and though Simon Easterby is an able replacement there are very few players in the world with Dallaglio's quality of character. I know how much effort he had put in to be ready for the tour and he will be devastated.

The Lions did some good things against the Bay of Plenty but there were a number of danger signals which point to some hard work ahead. At the start they were dynamic and carried the ball very well, and got in behind the defence. Then they seemed to drop the intensity and lose their composure. That is simply not on in New Zealand. If they are playing on the back foot against the All Blacks they will be ruthlessly exposed.

To make sure it doesn't happen there are a couple of areas they need to address quickly. The No 12 position is so important, both to shore up the defence and to get across the gainline in attack. If he had been fit I would have had no hesitation pencilling in Mike Tindall for the role. Yesterday Gavin Henson did nothing particularly wrong, but they did not use him to break the gainline and I feel that is crucial. Maybe Josh Lewsey is the man to do it. He did very well at 12 for Wasps in the last few weeks of the season. It could be Gareth Thomas, who is joining the tour this week, and they've also got Henson, Stephen Jones, Gordon D'Arcy and Tom Shanklin. The personnel is not the problem, it's the game plan and Eddie O'Sullivan as backs coach must look at ways of making it happen.

People have called for the Lions to play like Wales, but the Wales way is the wrong way against New Zealand. I'm not arguing for 10-man rugby but the Lions have got to be aggressive and boss the phases and wait for the opportunities for the backs to finish them off. When it comes to the Tests they've got to tie up Tana Umaga at centre and do the same to Richie McCaw otherwise he will gobble them up. If Richie is at the bottom of a ruck they have got to put a boot or two on him and keep him there. Slow him up getting to the next ruck and hopefully by the end of the match he will be 10 yards slower.

That's where the aggression comes in. The Lions need to clear out rucks and mauls and damage people. They weren't as tough in the contact areas yesterday as they should be and the tackling must improve. We can put some of that down to rustiness and not wanting to show their hand too early, but in any match and certainly in the Tests, when they turn the ball over they've got to switch on immediately.

The 10-12 channel has to be protected and to do so it's not enough just to put in a tackle: it has to be a tackle which knocks the attacker back across the gainline. Mentally, they're a little bit loose at times, which is a luxury they cannot afford.

The way the tour is mapped out there is very little time to bed in. Ronan O'Gara knows there are three other quality fly-halves on the trip and though he played the corners nicely and was fundamental to the way the Lions tightened the game up in the second half, he didn't kick his goals and he missed a couple of important tackles. It's harsh but Ronan may already have damaged his chances beyond repair and he will have to impress the coaches in training from now on.

On the positive side the stand-out players were Lewsey, Richard Hill and Dwayne Peel. The Lions definitely have the backs to tear the game up and there was an exciting glimpse of their potential when D'Arcy scored after he had been the decoy to get Lewsey through on a great attacking line.

It's the kind of teamwork sadly lacking on this side of the world where I'm hugely disappointed to see the Scots and the Irish have taken their ball home over the Celtic League. It's small-minded and short-sighted if they realistically think they can do without the Welsh and hopefully common sense will prevail.

At present the greatest concern is with the Lions, and the Irish, Scots and Welsh will be united in ruing the sad fate of a top-rated Englishman.