Time for Lions to ditch the 'tippy-tappy' and 'go through front door'

ACT Brumbies v British and Irish Lions

Venue: GIO Stadium, Canberra Date: Wednesday, 9 July Kick-off: 11:00 BST

Coverage: Live text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app.

In the minutes before the Lions ran out to play the Queensland Reds in Brisbane, Maro Itoje gathered his players together in the dressing room and appealed to their inner grunt.

The captain made a point about wanting to play hard and direct rugby. "Get us through the front door," he demanded of his team. "Forwards - set the tone with our physicality."

And that's the ongoing confusion with these Lions. They have all the artillery they need to blast through the guts of any team in Australia, but they just haven't done it nearly often enough.

Head coach Andy Farrell has said regularly that the Lions are absolutely at their best when driving at the heart of the opposition and then, when they have them beaten up, playing from there. It's like that old line about the first step to making chicken soup - catch a chicken.

And yet against the Waratahs they were still shovelling the ball out the backline without doing the hard yards up front. They should be better than this. They are better than this.

Last month, Itoje addressed some of the side-to-side stuff the Lions delivered in the defeat by Argentina and called it "tippy-tappy". And it's still a bit tippy-tappy.

Now that the Test series is looming on the horizon, maybe they're about to unload. Maybe now is the time the hounds of hell are unleashed and the gameplan shifts to a more balanced and more belligerent version of what we've seen so far.

Before the Brumbies game, Itoje was asked if more direct rugby was in the offing. "That's definitely the ambition," he replied.

"Rugby doesn't change too much, whether it's under-14s rugby or the Lions. You have to go forward. You have to earn the right - the famous saying - to go wide. And that is definitely the case for us. We need to punch holes, get forward, then space opens up, wherever that may be."

Does he feel they've been too lateral in their attack on this tour?

"At times, perhaps. At times we've been very good in playing direct and playing through teams. But at times we probably look to go wide before we earn the right."

And going wide before earning the right to go wide is why they ran into so much trouble against the Waratahs, who were waiting for them. The amount of handling errors from exceptionally talented players was maddening - not quite self-defeating, but a little too close for comfort.

Now it's the Brumbies' turn to have a crack at them. Given rugby league's State of Origin decider is on at the same time, the match will exist in a parallel Australian universe. Not that the Brumbies will see it like that.

They've been reared on stories of how their predecessors - Tevita Kuridrani and chums - beat the Lions in 2013 and how the 2001 Brumbies - Justin Harrison and all that - came so agonisingly close to beating them. They'll know that legendary status awaits them if they can pull this off.

The problem is the brutal realities of modern-day rugby are getting in their way. The Brumbies are a good side, the best in Australia. But this is not the best of the Brumbies the Lions will be playing.

They have 10 players with Joe Schmidt's Wallabies and only two have been released. Meanwhile, the Lions are going full metal jacket with what looks like the Test team, or very close to it.

It might not have the heft of the brilliant 2017 Lions in New Zealand, but there's a sense that if this team can put it all together then we're going to see something memorable.

At the heart of this, of course, is Finn Russell - championed on Tuesday in Canberra by Johnny Sexton who, you suspect, is now allowing himself to see a whole lot more in Russell as his coach than he ever did as his rival. That's been a nice sideshow.

"He's been very good, hasn't he?" said Sexton. "He's controlled things really well. He's been composed, place-kicked very well, defended remarkably well. He's been probably our best defender in the backline and that's great to see.

"So far, so good and hopefully we get another performance like that [against the Brumbies]."

The Wallabies are in poor shape, but the Lions can't distract themselves with the modest nature of what they will probably be facing in the series. They need to start getting it right. So, no sloppy beginnings, no tippy-tappy, no mountain of handling errors because they're forcing things. We need to see a cohesive unit coming through the fog now, a team with an identity and a ruthlessness.

"We want to be as dominant as we possibly can," said Itoje. "We want to build and build and build. We want to get better and better. We want to start big and we want to maintain that throughout the whole game.

"That's always the ambition. We want our big ball carriers to get over the gain-line, to aggressively attack holes. When you do that, opportunities tend to open up thereafter.

"People like Bundee (Aki), Ellis (Genge), Jack (Conan), big Joe McCarthy etc. We want these guys to be punching at the line."

There are several stages to Lions tours - the initial selection, all happy clappy; the jolly japery about stealing the Lion from its young protector (Henry Pollock, this time); the thrill of the early games and new combinations; the honour of the debutants wearing the jersey; the speculation about who's making the Test team.

We're through all of that now. This week in Australia has felt like the turning of a page. "From now on, the kid gloves are off - it's bare-knuckle stuff." Jim Telfer's words from the epic 1997 tour in South Africa.

It's all been a bit nice so far. More tummy-ticklers than kid gloves. Bare-knuckle stuff? Not seen it. But you have to think it's in them, and Wednesday would be a decent time for Itoje and his boys to start showing it.