The British and Irish Lions were far from perfect in Canberra on Wednesday night, but as the Wallabies suffer through a fly-half crisis the tourists at least have their halves pairing sorted.
Man-of-the-match Jamison Gibson-Park and fly-half Finn Russell pulled the strings of the Lions' 36-24 win over the Brumbies, with classy cameos from Garry Ringrose, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, Jack Conan and Marcus Smith, who came on as an early replacement for Blair Kinghorn.
But it was Gibson-Park, in particular, who controlled the tempo and distributed superbly to Russell, who again found his passing targets in midfield. Aside from a knock-on at the base of the ruck and a risky pass behind his own goalline that resulted in a 5m scrum for the Brumbies, Gibson-Park was nigh-on perfect.
"The big boys up front, they delivered a nice platform for me, so that makes my job easy," Gibson-Park told Stan Sport at fulltime. "As well as having a world-class players outside me, Finn Russell pulling the strings, so it was enjoyable."
It was the second time Gibson-Park and Russell had started together on tour, after the duo combined against the Reds in Brisbane last week. Scotland's fly-half also started in the win over the Force a few days earlier, but in all likelihood the Lions' first-choice halves pairing will now be put on ice for the first Test at Suncorp Stadium in 10 days' time.
That is a luxury the Wallabies do not have, with huge uncertainty over who will start in the halves following Noah Lolesio's neck injury. Australia's No. 10 was ruled out of the series on Tuesday evening after undergoing surgery, just two days after he had been cleared of injury and released from hospital.
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt will on Friday afternoon confirm his squad to face the Lions, with speculation growing over whether he may look to add James O'Connor or even Bernard Foley to his group, while Tane Edmed will get a chance to strut his stuff in the AUNZ Invitational XV on Saturday night. Ben Donaldson, meanwhile, is favoured to start in the first Test at fly-half.
But whomever runs out in Brisbane will be without regular game time together, that is unless Schmidt looks to combine Tate McDermott, who started at No. 9 against Fiji, with his Queensland Reds teammate Tom Lynagh, who has been under an ongoing injury cloud.
But all that will be of little consequence to Lions coach Andy Farrell, who saw his side improve to 4-0 in Australia despite conceding the opening try in Canberra. Farrell will have been satisfied with his side's scrum, and the way they shifted the ball once their handling held up, though James Lowe's inability to finish a first-half try with a casual putdown won't have thrilled the Lions boss.
They also shelled a couple of restarts and were exposed with some smart ball movement by the Brumbies', who scored off two set-piece platforms close to the Lions' line. But the visitors otherwise grew into the game nicely against Australia's premier Super Rugby franchise, albeit one without seven Wallabies regulars.
And throughout it for all but the final nine minutes was Gibson-Park, whose countryman, Irish great and now La Rochelle coach Ronan O'Gara paid the ultimate compliment at halftime in Canberra.
"There is just a little bit of a gulf in class, if you look at the 9 and 10, they're playing at a different tempo and speed, that's what Test players do and experienced Test players do," O'Gara told Stan Sport at the end of the first half.
"And I think Gibson-Park is exquisite, he knows when to add tempo and he knows when to slow it down a little bit. And then Russell is manipulating them [off the back of that].
"He's grown up in New Zealand, so obviously his ball skills are exceptional. But I think there is an advantage in playing in Ireland when you've wind and rain and it's difficult conditions; his kicking game, he rarely misplaces the ball, which means now, with the new rules that you can't shadow back, it's a 50/50 at worst for the attacking team. So the Lions are getting back an awful lot of his box-kick, which means he is just constantly able to add tempo.
"And I think he has a brilliant brain and he's able to scan on the run, like few other 9s in the world are... he's an exceptional runner, I think he has everything in his game. He's not a [Antoine] Dupont level but he is pretty close, which is the biggest compliment I can give him."
Smith, meanwhile, might soon find himself as the last man standing at fullback. With Elliot Daly already ruled out of the tour and Hugo Keenan having had a poor night in Sydney against the Waratahs, the tourists then lost Blair Kinghorn to a leg injury just 25 minutes into the clash in Canberra.
Smith came off the bench and set up one try for Ringrose, before finishing another himself.