Warren Gatland did his best to put a brave face on the Lions losing the first of five games against the New Zealand franchises, maintaining that the performance marked an improvement on last Saturday’s scratchy win over the Barbarians.
Even though the Blues have the weakest form of the five Kiwi sides, Gatland also claimed that there will not be that much of a difference between the Super Rugby quintet and the All Blacks, not least as they’ve been together since the start of the calendar year.
“I thought it was a step up on Saturday. There are a few areas from the set piece that we need to tidy up. The scrum was excellent and we kept putting them under pressure and generally the lineout was good on our ball.
“We’ve just had a little bit of a miscommunication, but we know that we can improve. We’ve been done a couple of times at line-out, once in the air for Courtney (Lawes) and once for closing the space and penalising for it. But we can control those things, and generally I was pretty happy with the set-piece.”
The main difference between the sides, ultimately, was the sharper cutting edge of the Blues, as evidenced by their match-winning try, whereas for all their attacking intent, the Lions’ sole try on an admittedly horrid night, came off a lineout drive.
“We know the quality of New Zealand sides,” said Gatland. “I thought there was a big improvement on Saturday. We’ve been longer together and we’ll continue to improve. We’ve started off well and got in front, and then got ourselves back into the game and in front. The try on half-time was disappointing. Let’s take nothing away from the try that Ihaia West scored and the offloading of New Zealand teams and it’s only going to continue. So we’ve got to be a little bit better at stopping their offloading game. I thought generally we did that pretty well with our line speed defensively and we coped with that. It’s just a moment of magic which you do get from New Zealand teams.
“I am happy that there is an improvement. I am disappointed that we lost the game obviously. But the thing about playing these quality sides – we talk about the Test match series and the preparation and go back to 2013 when we won the first game against the Barbarians by 70 and we won the next game against Western Force by 60 and it wasn’t great preparation for the Test matches.
“We will have learned a lot from tonight and learned a lot about the opposition and I think we will keep improving.”
When it was put to Gatland that the loss will prevent the Lions from building any momentum, he maintained: “We have played a lot better tonight. We have put ourselves in a position to win the game. You can take a lot of positives from that and you can take a lot of things in your control that you can change and improve. Saturday is going to be another tough encounter but those players will have been together and gelled for that little bit longer and so I expect to see an improvement from tonight’s performance again on Saturday.”
“There is so much strength in depth in this country I don’t think there is going to be a lot of difference between some of the Super Rugby sides and the All Blacks. These guys have been together for seven months and the All Blacks are coming together cold. There is a massive amount of strength in depth and I don’t think an awful lot of difference between the teams.”
Gatland seemed to suggest that Jared Payne's recurring calf problem is not as bad as it assuredly looked. "Jared Payne has a tight calf, of which we knew. Dan Biggar came for an HIA which he failed, but the medics think he'll be fine."
