In the first half it was South Africa who were in the ascendant, winning all of the collisions and whose game plan was dominant; in the second it was the Lions who wrested back the momentum and imposed the way they wanted to play.

This was Test-match rugby of the highest order, a tactical chess match in the best traditions of the Lions against the Springboks. In the first half it was the Boks who were utterly dominant, so much so that at the interval the Lions were lucky not to be further behind. Had wings Duhan van der Merwe and Anthony Watson not been so defensively impressive, and had Maro Itoje not been absolutely world-class at the breakdown, South Africa could have been out of sight.

Nothing South Africa did in the first half would have come as a surprise.

It was an identikit performance to the one that won them the World Cup, and was pretty much exactly the same tactics employed by South Africa A ten days ago. Yet the Lions lost the set-piece battle, were not physical enough at the breakdown, and seemed confused about what they were trying to do when they had the ball in hand.

The Boks, by contrast, did what they do best: they kicked for territory, applied pressure and waited for the Lions to leak penalties. And leak they did. Tom Curry’s two penalties were both completely unnecessary, as were Elliot Daly’s. The Lions were over-eager and indisciplined. Once again, every single Springbok point came from a Lions mistake.

By the break the possession stats made the match look fairly equal, with the Springboks having just 51 per cent of possession, but the truth was completely different.

Warren Gatland’s half-time team talk must have been a masterpiece of clear precision. After the break the Lions dominated South Africa even more completely than the home side had been in the ascendant in the first half.

How the Lions wanted to play was clear – instead of the high-tempo wide game they had wanted to play in the first half when they avoided kicking the ball out, they instead moved the Bok forwards around by keeping possession of the ball.

It worked like a dream. Every time the Lions strung together a series of phases, the Springboks did exactly what the Lions had done in the first half and gave away a procession of penalties. All of them were the result of the sort of indiscipline that was the hallmark of the Lions in the first period as the Boks lost patience and tried to turn over the ball when it just wasn’t on.

The Lions wrested back the initiative and did so immediately after half-time in what turned out to be the game’s definitive passage of play.

It started with an intelligent and pinpoint box kick from Ali Price, which set up the penalty for Eben Etzebeth’s high tackle on Robbie Henshaw which set the tone for what followed.

It would have been easy for Alun Wyn Jones to ask Dan Biggar to kick the points and get the Lions back in the hunt. Instead he went for the corner, a decision which was to change this match. When the Lions went for a lineout drive, they caught the Boks – who looked as if they expected them to go wide – offguard, and when three backs added their weight and Luke Cowan-Dickie emerged as the try-scorer, the pendulum had swung decisively and the game was back in the balance.

From there, of course there were setbacks, most notably the series of unfortunate incidents which led to Faf de Klerk’s try, but the Lions were undeniably in the ascendant. That was not just because of their tactics, but also because of their execution and mindset.

When it came to execution, the precision of their kicking, the energy of their kick-chase was immeasurably improved, and a South Africa side that looked like it was lacking fitness were rocked backwards. And when it came to intensity, the Lions looked like a side in which every member knew his role and was determined to play it to the full. A special mention must go to the back three, who I thought were excellent under the expected aerial barrage. Those players who performed so well after coming on – chief among them Mako Vunipola – also deserve a mention in dispatches.

If the stats from the first half didn’t tell the full story, then the stats from the second half certainly did. With a clear game plan and the bit between their teeth, the Lions’ intensity was so transformed and they were so dominant that they had 70 percent of territory. To achieve that in South Africa against the world champions, was as astonishing as the outcome of this encounter.