Johnson refuses to get carried away
June 16, 2001

Lions skipper Martin Johnson was satisfied with his side's 42-8 romp against Super 12 opposition Queensland Reds - but thought there was still room for improvement.

Jonny Wilkinson produced a superlative performance on his Lions debut to grab 17 points in a team display that will have been keenly watched by Wallabies coach Rod Macqueen.

Dan Luger, Rob Henderson, Dafydd James, Richard Hill and Brian O'Driscoll all touched down in an impressive show, but Johnson was eager to dampen any high spirits after the game, saying: "We are happy with that, but the thing is with this team is that there's lots more we can do. In the combinations we were a little bit basic but the rest of it was OK."

The Lions made a blistering start and had settled the game as a contest within the first 40 minutes but after the interval the home side were far more competitive. "I think we had the best of the ball in the first half, but we lost a bit in the second half and seemed to take our foot off the pedal when we should have gone for the jugular. It's a big week for us with three quality teams in eight days. It's going OK but we need to keep working hard," added the skipper.

Man-of-the-match Jonny Wilkinson felt the Lions had made another improvement in what had been billed in the toughest game Down Under so far. "All three games have been steps up. I think we need to get that togetherness that we perhaps haven't got for the full 80 minutes. The problems that we have are to make sure the next game is a step up. Today was hard. We wanted to get stuck in and hopefully we can get better from here."

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