Nothing in rugby union rams home physical superiority up front quite like the driving maul. It is the game's ultimate collective arm-wrestle, and it is one of the main reasons that South Africa have become favourites to clinch the series against the 2009 British and Irish Lions by winning the second Test in Pretoria tomorrow.

There is a massive irony about this, because the driving maul has been a traditional strength of British and Irish rugby, with English and Welsh clubs in particular being expert practitioners. Among the most effective of these in recent seasons have been Wasps, coached by none other than Ian McGeechan, and the Lions head coach was among the most vociferous critics of the ELV in place last season which allowed deliberate collapsing of the maul, effectively neutering it.

With that ELV thankfully jettisoned in time for this tour the driving maul is back and it was no great leap of the imagination to think that the Lions would latch onto it with a vengeance, using strong men like Simon Shaw, Andrew Sheridan, Adam Jones and Paul O'Connell to form a phalanx capable of smashing through the South African pack.

One of the biggest disappointments of the tour as the Lions approach their acid test is that their version of the driving maul has about as much authority as a community policeman. In their matches so far against weakened provincial opposition the 2009 Lions forwards have often looked as if they could not maul their way out of a wet paper bag - which is a clear indication that it has come way down the training agenda of McGeechan and his forwards coach, Warren Gatland.

Instead, the Lions appear to be intent on running the Springboks off their feet by adopting the fast, loose commando-style tactical approach that brought McGeechan success here 12 years ago. By contrast, the South African forwards coach, Gary Gold, has attended to the basics. And it does not come much more basic, brutal, direct and effective than the 15-metre driving maul, built around a Victor Matfield line-out take, that left the Lions pack scattered like chaff with their superior backline looking on, helpless, as Heinrich Brussow planted the ball over the line in the first Test in Durban last weekend.

By that stage the Springboks knew that they had the weapon in their armoury to win them the match, because they had already used a pulverising prototype maul to shunt the Lions pack backwards 30 metres from a midfield line-out - and should they do so again at Loftus Versfeld with McGeechan and Gatland, unable to field an eight capable of either replying in kind, or defending against it, serious questions will be raised over such a serious tactical oversight.

What is even stranger is that the driving maul has worked spectacularly in the past not just for McGeechan, whose 1989 Lions forwards worked Australia to death, but also for Gatland, who was the hooker in the bruising Waikato pack that took McGeechan's 1993 dirt-trackers to the cleaners.

After a well-drilled Lions maul had again failed to materialise in the game against the Emerging Springboks on Tuesday at Newlands - in filthy conditions that were tailor-made for it - I asked McGeechan whether he felt his side had been effective in the grapple-and-grind. "No, maybe not, but we'll keep on working on it", was his reply.

David Wallace, the Lions openside flanker, was only marginally more illuminating and seemed to be more focused on stopping the Bok maul than giving them a bit of their own medicine. "It's not really grunt work, it's more technical, knowing how we will defend as an eight," he said. "It's easy if you know what to do - we have to react quicker".

The inclusion of Shaw in the starting line-up at Loftus shows that the Lions are trying to fix their maul problems as a matter of urgency, but asking the veteran second row to sort it by himself is a huge ask and one that would put the big man up there among the Lions legends if he succeeded.

It is tempting to think that "Geech" has duped us all, and that he and Gatland are about to pull a master-stroke by unleashing an unstoppable tank of a maul in South Africa's direction. But the signs all point in the other direction, with a Lions tactical blueprint based entirely on running the Springboks into the deck.

Phillips the victim of unwanted attention

Mike Phillips, the Lions scrum-half, had the press pack in stitches yesterday in Cape Town with a "Mama, he's making eyes at me!" revelation about Bakkies Botha, the Springbok second row bruiser. Phillips says that Botha's idea of sledging was slightly off beam during the first Test. "I think he fancies me because he was going on about my 'sexy blue eyes' - but I made no comment back". Wise move.

Nick Cain is travelling with Thomas Cook Sport, an official licensed operator of the British & Irish Lions tour. For more details go to www.thomascooksport.com