Warren Gatland vows to address error count as British and Irish Lions are stunned by Blues
The Lions suffered their first tour defeat after falling to a 22-16 loss in Auckland.
Warren Gatland bemoaned his side's ill-discipline as British and Irish Lions were stunned by the Blues in the second match of the 2017 tour.
Beginning their preparations for the three-match Test series against New Zealand on Saturday (3 June) against the Provincial Barbarians, the Lions sleepwalked their way to a tour-opening win. Handed a far sterner test against the Super Rugby side led by the All Blacks' Sonny Bill Williams, they were made to pay for some costly mistakes at Eden Park.
Fielding a completely different 15, Gatland's men conceded the contest's opening try within six minutes when Rieko Ioane surged past Jack Nowell. But after 71 minutes, they looked to be heading towards a narrow victory after two penalties from Leigh Halfpenny, despite losing Liam Williams on the hour mark after he was sin-binned for a second tackle in the air.
A moment of magic from the Blues, initially prompted by a poor kick from Johnny Sexton, denied them a second win however with Williams' superb offload freeing Ihaia West to race clear to score a stunning try and seal the 22-16 win.
The Lions conceded 13 penalties and a two further free kicks in what was a disorganised performance, repeatedly undoing strides in momentum with costly mistakes pulled up by the referee's whistle.
Gatland insisted post-match he felt there were positives to be taken from a performance he felt was much improved from Saturday's showing, but insisted addressing the needless number of penalties given away will be a priority in training in the coming days.
"I think it was a big improvement from Saturday," Gatland told Sky Sports. "It was a close game. Probably what hurt us was the amount of penalties we gave away, so that's an area we need to look at. It cost us momentum in the game.
"It felt like there were lots of positives about today, some of our set piece stuff was good. We need to make sure we control that area of the game in terms of the number of penalties we've given away in the first games.
"It's an area from a coaching point of view, and a players point of view, we'll hopefully address over the next few days and be really strong on that."
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