New Zealanders followed Saturday evening's extraordinary happenings in Brisbane with a mixture of barely -restrained glee at the discomfort of their great trans -Tasman foes and sweaty-palmed relief that they don't have to play the Lions until 2005.

Caution should be exercised in advance of Melbourne's second test, one battle out of the way but the war still to be won , but so comprehensively were the Wallabies out-thought, out-run, out-tackled, out-jumped, out-mauled, out-scrummaged, out-pointed that it is difficult to see how they can come back from such demoralizing defeat. The mantra going up is that the Wallabies can only play better, they have come back from such reverses before , but what will happen if the Lions manage to sustain their effort for the whole 80 minutes, surely their aim in Melbourne ?

If the Lions do go two up to clinch the series , that will surely settle the debate which has been raging in New Zealand in the past few days, one veteran radio broadcaster going so far as to state that on current form the Lions would have to be regarded as the best team in the world. That thesis will never be fully tested , of course, but that doesn't make it any less interesting. The major question troubling New Zealanders is the obvious one : Would the Lions have beaten the All Blacks if they had been in Wellington last Saturday, not the French ?

The only sort of form guide we have is about a year old, but I don't think it offers New Zealanders much comfort. Last July, at Sydney's Stadium Australia, the Wallabies and All Blacks fought out an epic , claimed by many as one of the great test matches in history. In an extraordinary opening 7-minute blitz the All Blacks crossed the Wallabies' line three times to take a 21-0 lead. By half time the Aussies had fought back to such good effect that they had scored four tries of their own , the score tied 24-24.In the second half things calmed down just a little, each side restricted to two more 5 pointers and the match decided by a typical Lomu strike down the left hand touchline.

The All Blacks established their initial advantage because of the opportunistic brilliance of their fab three : Cullen , Umaga and Lomu, the Wallabies able to fight back because their forwards got the better of the All Black eight. In Brisbane last weekend, finding themselves 29-3 down after 50 minutes , the Wallabies were in grave danger of a real hammering, one far more conclusive than the eventual scoreline suggested. The Lions' backs were stunning , O'Driscoll and Robinson in particular, but James and Henderson not far behind. But the victory was built upon the platform that the forwards established from the outset. They destroyed their opponents in the scrums and in the loose and dominated at the line outs to such an extent that Eales and Giffin were totally eclipsed.

Shattered by the brilliance of Robinson's opening try, the Wallabies' defence disintegrated and the Lions poured through it for the rest of the match. One sensed that the game was settled in the opening forward exchanges as the Lions asserted their superiority. Yes, the Wallabies fought back but they were in catch-up mode, their tries scored with the Lions well in front and short-handed. Would the All Blacks have fared any better ?

The short answer, I believe , is no. The shortcomings of their forward play is well documented, it accounted for their World Cup semi final exit and was responsible for their failure to secure the Bledisloe Cup and Tri Nations title in 2000. In Johannesburg last August the All Blacks conceded five first half tries as the Springboks poured through their fragile forward defences. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that messrs Johnson, Grewcock, Wood, Vickery, Smith, Quinnell , Hill and Corry would not have been similarly successful against an All Black scrum that is fragile , a pack that struggles against well-organised mauling and to establish a real forward presence against top sides. Yes, they have brilliant backs, and the firepower has been substantially increased with Jeff Wilson's return . But not even they, going backwards and starved of possession , would have lived with the Brisbane Lions.

Yes, the Lions would have beaten the All Blacks.