Lions scrum half Matt Dawson has labelled the build-up to the Test series with Australia as "crazy".

Speaking in the same tour diary column for the Daily Telegraph from where he caused so much outrage on the eve of the 1st Test, Dawson believes so much more could have been done to prepare the players.

"I know what it's like to have won a Lions series and I know what a monumental achievement it is," he says. "We all need to reflect on how Lions tours should work. Our build-up was crazy. Some boys were playing their 50th game of the season."

The Northampton star was also unrepentant for his earlier comments in which he had claimed Lions coach Graham Henry was "uninspiring", that marathon training sessions were both poorly-organised and draining players' reserves and that tour manager Donal Lenihan treated the squad "like kids".

"I apologised (to the squad) for the timing and the breach of trust and confidence," said Dawson. "I'm not making excuses or reneging on what I wrote, but I fully understand that it has harmed their reputations and took the gloss off the squad's victory (in the first Test)."

Just days after playing the villain, Dawson was the hero as he completed an inspired Lions fightback against Super 12 champions ACT Brumbies with an injury-time conversion in a 30-28 victory. Dawson claims he was inspired by the flak he had received for his comments in the press.

"I wanted to have a big game to prove critics wrong about what they saw as the reasons for writing the diary," he said. "It wasn't because of sour grapes or petulance and there was only one way to show them that wasn't so.

"The crowd and the squad have given me so much positive chat that it makes you wonder what the papers are making of it all."

Dawson also revealed that the squad enjoyed a night on the town to help build team spirit in the build-up to the second Test in Sydney.

"We'd finally arranged a team dinner at Rib and Rumps restaurant. Needless to say that's exactly what we did eat in huge proportions. I could hardly walk back to the hotel. It was a good night with good banter. We should have done this weeks before."