Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Cape Town -  The British and Irish Lions, at an opportune juncture, are starting to get a much better idea of who their truest Test candidates and dirt-trackers are.

The Phil Vickery-led combination which played Western Province at Newlands on Saturday probably needed to produce something fairly special if they were to present a lengthy list of late nominations for starts in the first Test at Absa Stadium next weekend.

That they didn’t, partly because of WP’s admirable tenacity in a tight 26-23 defeat which just kept the tourists’ 100 percent record intact, means a healthy core of the side which disposed of the Sharks in more rousing fashion are likely to be wrapped in cotton wool now for the Test.

Certainly, you would hardly expect to see the likes of Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell, Mike Phillips, Lee Byrne and Gethin Jenkins start against the Southern Kings on Tuesday, despite their being rested for the absorbing Cape Town assignment as well.

That said, it is not as though the Lions were poor at Newlands in the gusting north-wester and on a pitch made slippery by torrential showers not long before kick-off – they were just not quite as effervescent as some of their number probably needed to be to force coach Ian McGeechan into a genuine Test selection quandary.

You always felt they had enough in the bank to stave off Province’s cheeky stabs at an upset, especially as they scored three tries to one and Willem de Waal’s prodigious kicking at the posts – four penalties and a dropped goal – was mostly what kept the home side in the hunt.

The blue-and-whites’ brains trust may be kicking themselves for their decision to substitute loosehead prop Wicus Blaauw four minutes from time: replacement JD Moller was instantly penalised for not binding at his first scrum and James Hook’s dream strike from just inside halfway probably prevented a drawn outcome.

Province had earlier clawed back rather nicely from a 23-15 deficit going into the final quarter, including a well-worked, score-levelling try for fullback Joe Pietersen, who mixed the very good with rank bad from a personal perspective on the day.

So which of Saturday’s Lions XV might yet start in Durban? Wings Tommy Bowe (official man-of-the-match) and Ugo Monye played with purpose and ambition, although in the latter’s case he seems like one of those big units whom a shrewd tactical kicker might just expose defensively.

In the pack, No 8 Andy Powell stuck up his hand, even if Irishman Jamie Heaslip appears to have the edge for that Test shirt. Powell is an impressive physical specimen, right down to his Matfield-like swathes of forearm bandaging.

He was the one left on his feet after a wince-inducing – from the press-box, anyway – collision with Province’s own loose forward muscle-man Duane Vermeulen, and there just may be the temptation to put the 115kg Welshman up against Pierre Spies and give the Lions’ Test eight an even more impressive amount of grunt than it already will boast.

Powell combined well with compatriot Martyn Williams: they did some decent build-up running in the move that led to Bowe’s opening try.

Saturday demonstrated once again that the entire Lions squad are in tip-top conditioning fettle, strong at securing primary ball and extremely well-organised when the opposition run at them.

Province quickly discovered, for instance, that getting a rolling maul going was close to futile – it just wouldn’t get out of the blocks!

But that’s not to say that the oft-maligned WP engine room didn’t come out with some kudos: Anton van Zyl looks like a clever signing at lock and when he combines with seasoned All Black Chris Jack for the Currie Cup the tight five, as a whole, will be extremely workmanlike rather than the more customary iffy.

I regret to inform the slightly tired “I hate Luke Watson” club, too, that his troops seem to rally behind him pretty spiritedly.

A respectable crowd of some 34 000 were rewarded, by and large, for making the effort to turn out under menacing skies, and it is clear that really massed ranks of Lions supporters are arriving now for what shapes as a humdinger of a Test phase to the tour.

There were times when you might have been mistaken for believing you were at some northern hemisphere stadium, so apparent was the chanting from the many red-clad clusters of spectators …