By Neal Collins

Humiliation? Yup.

The 2005 Lions were All Blacked-out in Auckland, the final, crushing Test defeat coming hot on the heels of the crisis in Christchurch and the walloping in Wellington.

These prideless Lions didn't get close once. That's not happened for a long time and here, they weren't even applying pressure.

The judgement?

Grand Slam-winning Welshmen have failed under fire, World Cup-winning Englishmen have wilted woefully, Irish eyes aren't smiling...and the Scots made a solitary late appearance through Gordon Bulloch. It's enough to make all four nations weep.

This was the big tour, with specially written anthems, deep pockets, spin doctors and royalty.

But even Sir Clive Woodward's manic over-preparation couldn't prepare 50-plus players for three Tests against an All Black side doing their traditional thing and dominating the rugby-speaking nations between World Cups.

Tana Umaga scored twice and said: "We believe we dropped our standards, we'll have to look at our game. They played like true Lions, tenacious. But we'll enjoy this victory."

Gareth Thomas, the anonymous Lions captain, said: "You give them a ball and they punish you. They take their opportunities. We haven't had the preparation Sir Clive wanted, we didn't get the match time. They deserved to win the series."

Too right.

They were a class above, these All Blacks.

As Thomas confessed to the assembled Lions fans afterwards: "Tana, you gave us a lesson in rugby."

Third choice fly-half Luke McAlister was magic their locks, Chris Jack and Ali Williams, were unstoppable.

But most important of all, the Kiwi backs taught the flightless Europeans how to run with the ball, how to burst over the gain line, how to offload in the tackle.

The Lions were reduced to a single forward-based try.

Only South African referee Jonathan Kaplan, anything but a homer, stopped the All Blacks from adding to their record try tally of 12 for the series.

With ball in hand, the All Blacks were magnificent. The Lions were toothless and static.

Somebody must take responsibility for the worst performance by the Lions since 1983 here. Sir Clive, World Cup winner, should probably look at his coaches and himself for over-elaboration but it's too late for that.

These are fine All Blacks with Graham Henry boasting an apparently limitless depth to a world class squad.

But the Lions were clueless and error-strewn, kicking when they should have passed, playing pat-a-cake when they were supposed to be making try-saving tackles.

We will not remember superb New Zealand tries here.

Instead the bitter memories will be Sir Clive's dogged selection of the oldguard for the awful first Test, The goings-on with Gavin Henson, injuries to Lawrence Dallaglio and Brian O'Driscoll, the axeing of Neil Back, the late appearance of Mark Cueto.

And the two dominant tour memories? Jonny Wilkinson playing through the endless pain and Shane Williams looking like a boy among men.