By Andrew Baldock

Waffling Sir Clive Woodward will fly home on Sunday as the World Cup winner who failed in his final great rugby challenge.

Woodward was desperate to take charge of the British and Irish Lions, but he is set to deliver the most unsuccessful tour for 22 years.

Not since 1983, when Woodward travelled to New Zealand as a player, have the Lions suffered a Test series whitewash, yet that fate awaits them if they are beaten by a vastly-superior All Blacks outfit at Eden Park on Saturday.

And while Woodward's shameless exercise in self-justification continues, there is no doubt this £9million trip has proved a miserable rugby experience for the thousands of Lions fans who travelled 12,000 miles, ultimately, to watch some distinctly average action.

Woodward talks about the tour being a fantastic experience "behind the scenes," but frankly, who cares what happens in the team room?

I don't doubt for one minute that players and management have made new lifelong friendships and had a great time bonding, but your average red-shirted punter couldn't give a damn.

For those on the outside - and that includes a vast media contingent who have largely been snubbed and treated with contempt - it was a tour that never happened.

Veteran correspondents, some with seven Lions trips behind them, say it is by far the worst tour they have experienced.

Of course, if you believe the spin, us scribes don't know what we are talking about.

What on earth were Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell and his former Downing Street press office colleague Ben Wilson doing on the trip in senior media roles? Their combined knowledge of rugby tours - history, legacy, players and all that - wouldn't fill the back of a postage stamp.

Campbell, especially, strode around the place in his Lions tracksuit as if he had every right to be there. Fortunately, after Woodward's final press conference on Sunday morning, Campbell, in rugby terms, ceases to exist.

And then to the rugby, or lack of it.

Compared with 2001 in Australia, a Lions tour that Woodward needed no second invitation to criticise over the past four years, this trip finished a poor second.

Woodward likes to have his digs at Lions predecessor Graham Henry, but let's not forget that in 2001, the Lions beat powerful Queensland and New South Wales sides, smashed the Wallabies with a mesmeric first-Test performance and would arguably have won the series had inspirational flanker Richard Hill not been a blatant foul play victim in Melbourne seven days later.

Australia, it needs to be remembered, were world champions at that time.

Four years on, the Lions beat two crushingly weak provincial sides - Southland and Manawatu - defeated Otago impressively, and had several unconvincing moments before seeing off Bay of Plenty, Taranaki and Wellington.

New Zealand Maori, meanwhile, the one side that had its complement of available All Blacks, beat the Lions in Hamilton far more comprehensively than a 19-13 scoreline suggests.

It is not to say that several Lions players didn't rise to the task.

Tour replacements Ryan Jones and Simon Easterby - two back-row forwards not selected in Woodward's original 45-man squad - were exceptional, together with hooker Gordon Bulloch, Wasps back Josh Lewsey and gifted Irish runner Geordan Murphy.

Woodward also had his share of major injury problems, with Lawrence Dallaglio, Malcolm O'Kelly, Brian O'Driscoll and Richard Hill among those who painfully didn't last the course, while Danny Grewcock collected yet another ban.

But anyone who tries to con the public into believing that New Zealand 2005 was a great Lions tour, should be dismissed with utter contempt.

Cue Henry.

"I think the Lions have been fortunate on this tour they have not played any strong provincial teams," he said, this week.

"If they (Lions) had played the (Canterbury) Crusaders, the (Wellington) Hurricanes, the (Otago) Highlanders, the (Auckland) Blues and the (Waikato) Chiefs, who would know what the result would have been?

"I will just leave you with that thought."

Behind the security fences of training grounds, the unforgettable Stalag-style fortress that one Wellington hotel was turned into, and general paranoia that surrounded the Lions' movements, I am sure the players and management had a great time.

Woodward headed the whole operation as though he was the chief executive of a major global brand, yet he got selection horribly wrong in the first Test and was completely outgunned by a more astute and streetwise Henry.

Yes, Woodward has won the World Cup, but Henry will surely match that achievement in 2007 and eventually go down in rugby history as a far better coach than the former England supremo.

Of course, it's easier when you are winning, but All Blacks press conferences had humour and great inter-action between coaches and journalists, while their media team were wonderfully efficient, unfailingly helpful and never dismissive.

In contrast, the Lions proved a sour, surly-faced bunch with about as much charisma as a wet lettuce.

Many Lions fans had seen enough after Wellington. Several sold their Auckland Test tickets and went home early, disillusioned that a squad which promised so much, eventually delivered so little.

And that will be the abiding memory of this tour - fans who felt let down by the 'Woodward experience' and in Lions terms, might just never return, whether it's New Zealand, Australia or South Africa.