Defeat on debut for Nowell

By Mark Stevens
7/6/17

Jack Nowell's British & Irish Lions debut ended in disappointment as he found himself on the losing side, going down 22-16 to the Blues in their second game of the 2017 tour.

Exeter Chiefs star Nowell started on the right wing for Warren Gatland's tourists, who were were outscored three tries to one by their adventures opponents.

Tries from Rieko Ioane, Sonny Bill Williams and Ihaia West secured the win for the home team, but Gatland - whose side countered with a try from CJ Stander and 11 points from full-back Leigh Halfpenny - remains optimistic ahead of three titanic clashes with the All Blacks.

"It’s a big improvement from Saturday – it was a close game," said Gatland, whose side kicked off their tour with a 13-7 victory over Provincial Barbarians.

“There is so much depth in this country and these teams have been together for a long time with the Super Rugby season. I don’t think there will be much of a difference between Super Rugby sides and the All Blacks.

“There has been an improvement and I think we will see another improvement on Saturday. It is going to give us great preparation for the Test series playing at this level, learning from these hard, competitive games.

“In Australia in 2013, winning by 60/70 points in the first couple of games isn’t preparation for winning a Test match.

“This is brilliant preparation for the next few weeks and building towards the first Test.”

Gatland highlighted his side's indiscipline as an area which needs to improve moving forward.

He added: "The number of penalties hurt us, cost us momentum in the game, but there’s lots of positives. Our set-piece was good, but we need to control the number of penalties we give away in the game. That’s an area we will address over the next few days. We have to make sure we control things that are in our control. We must half our penalty count."

Next up for the Lions is Saturday's encounter with the Crusaders at the AMI Stadium in Christchurch.