What a win for the Lions. It was massive, but it was a game of incredibly fine margins. So much of the talk leading into yesterday's First Test surrounded the battle on the ground. The breakdown was indeed a huge part of the game, but not quite for the reasons we predicted. Referee Chris Pollock very quickly showed that he was not interested in the slow ball-producing jackal technique and, while many – including me – questioned his early penalising of Brian O'Driscoll after what appeared a textbook attempted steal, it set a definite and undisguised tone. Quick ball was the order of the day, and what followed was a scorcher of a spectacle. When the squad was announced, the only selection about which I wondered was Dan Lydiate on the replacements' bench. Not because he is not a wonderful player – he is – but because he is not a natural openside. Should Sam Warburton get hurt, who would compete at dirt level? Well, perhaps Warren Gatland did his homework and knew that the referee was not necessarily an advocate of the Neil Back school of rugby. Which is not to say that neither openside was effective over the course of the game but, as so often happens, one man's interpretation of one of the game's many crucial areas shaped the whole event, and it was fascinating to watch both sets of half-backs adjust, with Will Genia dominant. The scrummage, too, did not pan out as we hoped. In the first half the Lions dominated on occasion, but the Wallabies held out, used the odd early engagement to their advantage and, as the minutes ticked by and replacements appeared, closed the gap right up, almost squeezing Dan Cole and Mako Vunipola out of the game. How clever. How Australian.

Tourists unhappy with communication between officials and fear tackle area problems in Test

The Lions suffered their first defeat of the 2013 tour

The Wales international strained his hamstring against New South Wales Waratahs

The Lions captain feels the 47-17 win over the NSW Waratahs is the perfect build-up with just a week to go till the first Test

The original purpose for which the trade unions created the Labour Party was to get working-class representatives into Parliament. The old engineering union, the AUEW, which has now been absorbed in Unite, had a particularly strong record for taking members off the factory floor, training them up and getting them into Parliament.

'Another few would make no real difference' – claims newly released Foreign Office documents

In a scientific tour-de-force worthy of the search for the elusively small Higgs boson, scientists have discovered that size really does matter to women when it comes to the length of a man’s manhood.

Australia will conduct its own investigation into the arrest, detention and death of Mossad agent Ben Zygier who died in an Israeli prison two years ago – and will ask Israeli officials to provide evidence.

Israel has partially lifted a gagging order in the mysterious case of ‘Prisoner X’ and formally recognised that an Israeli with dual citizenship had committed suicide in one of the country’s most secure prisons in 2010.

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Sprint queen returns to action in Glasgow after shattering tainted record in London

1. Which philosopher (1889-1951) said: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"?

Record temperatures across southern Australia cooled today, reducing the danger from scores of raging wildfires but likely bringing only a brief reprieve from the summer's extreme heat and fire risk.