Johnson: We'll put this right

An awful lot of people have spent an awful lot of money to support us out here and I can assure them that we will be giving it all we've got on Saturday to make their trip worthwhile.

After such a long season there are bound to be concerns about fatigue, physical as well as mental, and whether there is enough left in the tank for one final push to the summit. The re-fuelling process began last night after we had checked into our hotel beside the ocean, following the flight from Melbourne. Despite the frustration of missing our chances to finish off the Wallabies, we will have no problem raising ourselves for the decider.

We let ourselves down with the way we played in the second half and we feel we let the fans down - but it's not over. We have a last chance to put it right and swing the series back our way. Nobody pretends that it is going to be anything less than very, very difficult. Most importantly, there will be nothing to distract us from our objective of winning the series.

No midweek game means we can concentrate on getting ourselves in the right frame of mind. Graham Henry called a meeting of the senior players last night to discuss our schedule for the week and I think it's essential we get the balance right with a break or two along the way. Rest and recovery are vital. Unlike South Africa in 1997 and New Zealand in 1993, this is a Lions tour without a midweek match during the final week, something which the management insisted upon - and rightly so. Last week, for example, against the Brumbies in Canberra, several members of the Test squad were involved.

Martin Corry and Matt Dawson played, Austin Healey got injured and missed the Test. I was on the bench because of the shortage caused by injury and the suspension to Colin Charvis, so it was hardly an ideal way of preparing for the Melbourne Test.

I must admit it took me a long time to get to sleep on Saturday night. I must have nodded off round about two o'clock on Sunday morning, wondering: 'What if....? What
if we had taken our chances?' We had chances and if we had made them count the way we did in Brisbane the previous week, then Australia would have been chasing the game. It was there for us to win, but who knows how it would have worked out had we been as clinical in our finishing in the second Test as we were in the first?