The British and Irish Lions, who arrived in Perth on Saturday tired from their 22-hour flight, admitted they had little time to produce a winning Test side.

England's Martin Johnson, the first man to be selected as Lions captain for a second series, said his squad of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish players had little time to gel.

"I think it's pretty close, we're a scratch team that's been thrown together and we've got a month to get ourselves in good enough shape to take them on," he said. "We've got talent, but it's all about getting it together in the field and only time will tell."

The first of three Tests on their first tour to Australia in 12 years is in Brisbane on June 30.

And Johnson dismissed suggestions the Lions had a stronger pack. "We've got a lot of respect for the Wallabies as a team and you don't get to win a World Cup by having a glaring weakness," he said. "A few people have been saying the forward pack's weak, we don't really see it like that. They are tough all over and I think it will be a real close series."

The Lions were expected to rest Johnson and his English teammates Jonny Wilkinson, Neil Back and Lawrence Dallaglio for the series opener against Western Australia at the WACA ground on Friday.

But coach Graham Henry said an effort would be made to play as many of the squad as possible in the first two warm-up matches.

"There's one or two guys who've played a lot of rugby recently and we're
trying to rest them and another one or two with niggles," he said. "So we're not pushing anyone into these games that's not 100 per cent fit and we're trying to rest guys that have played a lot in the last month."

Henry gave little away of how the tourists would play Australia.

"We hope to play to our strengths and hope to find one or two weaknesses in the Australians which we will introduce into our game plan as well," he said. "But they're pretty hard to find - they're the best in the world they hold every eligible trophy that they can play for and we are playing them in their own back yard. It's going to be a huge challenge."