Quote Originally Posted by Animeniax
That would be really really bad for the Konoha teams. 7 jounins of varying skill and 1 retired medic against 9 S-class villain ninjas. Even if it is just their shadow forms, the meat puppets gave our guys almost more than they could handle.
Still, their mission is to rescue Gaara, not actually defeat all of Akatsuki, so in that sense it's not quite as bad. And also it doesn't look like Akatsuki would like to sacrifice its (core) members like was demonstrated by that meat puppet technique. So, they won't fight to their utmost potential.

And for all we know, Jiraiya could still suddenly show up at the critical moment to save the day!