LONG READ Mick Cleary: 'Farrell has sent out a clear message to the squad. The intensity levels need to rise.'

They come to Australia’s Wild West gold-mining city of Perth in search of riches and while the Lions’ panning bowls were not full to the brim as they headed to Brisbane they did manage to unearth a nugget of two that will stand them in good stead as they approach the nub of the tour. The three tests against the Wallabies are the crux of the matter but the next ten days will shape the outcome of that series. For the players the upcoming games will be the formative experience of the entire trip. Andy Farrell will have had to make his mind up as to what his best XV and match-day 23 will be by the time the final whistle blows in Canberra on July 9^th, ten days ahead of the first test itself. It’s crunch time, already.

This is the madcap part of the tour, an exhilarating yet challenging odyssey. Bags packed, on the move. The British and Irish Lions squad has already crossed the country from Perth to Brisbane and will then fly onwards to Sydney for the Waratahs before the hop south to take on the Brumbies. It is a testing schedule but it is also what the Lions is all about – no time to draw breath, no time to rest sore bodies, no time to think of yourself and your place in the selection grand scheme of things. This is the selfless part of the tour, the shakedown to see who can hack it, the non-stop travel, the bumps and bruises, the need to rouse yourself even if you sense you are slipping down the pecking order and give of yourself in training so as to ensure that the test team is in the best possible shape. The weak, or the selfish and egotistical, need not apply.

Farrell has been preaching this gospel ever since the chosen few first assembled in Portugal. The romance of the Lions concept is one thing. Dragging yourself out of bed and onto the training field is quite another.

That is why Farrell’s remarks about wing, Mack Hansen, post the Western Force game – a curate’s egg of a match, good in parts, troubling in others, imperfect yet impressive at the same time – were so revealing.

“The player of the game by a country mile was Mack Hansen,” said the Lions’ head coach.

They don’t tend to do hyperbole in Wigan. Head coaches don’t normally single out individuals. It’s as if a Trappist Monk suddenly threw off his cloak and began gabbling like a tipsy teenager. Farrell, though, was not hero-worshipping. He was sending out a clear message to the squad. The intensity levels need to rise. And rise again after that. There is not yet enough grunt and grit in what they do, not enough thought of others, not enough commitment to the cause, not enough sweat and toil, not enough sense of team.

Hansen is not an X-factor player. He is neither the fastest nor the trickiest wing in the world. He is no Louis Bielle-Biarrey or Cheslin Kolbe. Yet he is exactly Farrell’s type of character – a grafter rather than a grifter, giving to others rather than taking from them.

What price a late call to arms for Jack Willis after yet another all-consuming display for Toulouse in the Top 14 final?

By any objective measure, Hansen was not Man-of-the-Match, let alone by a country mile. The wing was good, to be fair, but big, bruising lock, Joe McCarthy was better with upbeat mentions in dispatches also for Elliot Daly, Finn Russell, Josh van der Flier as well as, if a slightly less clear-cut nugget, Henry Pollock. In the panning bowl of relative riches must be scrum-half, Tomos Williams, before his dodgy hamstring put him out of the tour.

These players now have stock in the bank. The beauty of a Lions tour, though, is that the standards they have set are now there to be trumped, by a Tommy Freeman or Duhan van der Merwe, by a Tom Curry, perhaps, who has seen what van der Flier has done and knows that he has to do better even if he were productive enough against Argentina. (And what price a late call to arms for Jack Willis after yet another all-consuming display for Toulouse in the Top 14 final? If there is one real area of concern for the Lions it is at the breakdown. Australia are monsters in that department. The Lions have yet to show their claws.)

McCarthy was the big plus of the mixed collective outing against the Force who were done no favours by the scoreboard. They caused the Lions no end of difficulties in the first half only eventually to fade as Farrell emptied his bench. The Lions can’t rely on that innate advantage – a set of international replacements against provincial understudies – when the test series starts, or even the tougher Aussie provinces stack up against them.

McCarthy provided heft as well as energy in all phases, showing the sort of form that made him such a standout performer for Ireland last year, notably against France. The Leinster lock is the perfect foil to Maro Itoje. Should we be worried that Itoje did not feature in the first Saturday game? No, not at all. Itoje needs rest and nurturing. James Ryan has not yet appeared and has a lot of ground to make up.

It was such a bugger for everyone that Williams injured himself in the act of rounding off a fabulous counter-attack from deep. The Welshman was pushing hard for a test start.

Tadhg Beirne was not as prominent as might have been expected in the blindside role. Ollie Chessum has a chance there. The make-up of the back-row is the biggest selection headache for Farrell, both in terms of his own personnel – how the Lions are missing a fit-and-firing Caelan Doris at No 8 – as well as the threat that will be posed by the Wallaby trio of Fraser McReight, Rob Valetini and Harry Wilson. If the Lions don’t manage to sharpen their breakdown work, generate more dynamism as well as accuracy, they are doomed, no matter what tricks Russell might conjure. Once again, come on down Jack Willis, a one-man jackal machine.

Up front, the lineout functioned better than against the Pumas but the tight scrum didn’t until Andrew Porter and Will Stuart arrived to shore up matters. It was such a bugger for everyone that Williams injured himself in the act of rounding off a fabulous counter-attack from deep. The Welshman was pushing hard for a test start. Russell is now absolutely nailed-on. The centre pairing is yet to be finalised: Garry Ringrose was busy but we have not yet seen enough of Huw Jones. That will be a close call. And Daly – a ‘Rolls Royce’ of a player according to Sky pundit, Conor Murray-  is now very much in the conversation for the No 15 shirt, and not just by default due to the unavailability of Hugo Keenan and Blair Kinghorn.

The Optus Stadium PA announcer poked fun at the Lions cosmopolitan make-up. The sledging will not go away. The mickey-taking is typical Aussie banter. And it’s meaningless. The Lions identity issues are purely out on the field of play. We shall know far more when this three-legged segment is behind us.