Warren Gatland believes that his British & Irish Lions squad could yet upset the All Blacks despite their frustrating last‑gasp 22-16 defeat against the Blues in Auckland. Gatland has warned his players, however, to stop conceding soft penalties if they are to put a tough start to their 2017 tour behind them.

With a string of tough provincial games ahead, notably the Crusaders match in Christchurch on Saturday, Gatland argues his side will be uniquely well prepared when they do finally encounter New Zealand in just over three weeks.

“There is so much strength in depth I don’t believe there’s going to be a massive amount of difference between the Super Rugby sides and the All Blacks,” the Lions’ head coach said. “These guys have been together for seven months and the All Blacks are coming together cold. We will have learned a lot from tonight and learned a lot about the opposition and I think we will keep improving.

Lions slip to disappointing defeat to Blues after stunning Ihaia West try Read more

“Look, we know the quality of the New Zealand sides but I thought it was a big improvement from Saturday. It was [settled by] a moment of magic which you do get from New Zealand teams. We have to be a little bit better at stopping their offloading game but we will continue to improve.”

In the dressing room, too, Gatland’s assistant Andy Farrell has been stressing the need for players to be more clinical and not give sides like the Blues easy points. “The big message from Andy Farrell to the players was the penalty count and penalties that were avoidable,” Gatland said. “In the first two games we have been a bit soft in that area. We have to be hard on ourselves as players and coaches to make sure we definitely tighten up in that area because it is causing us a few issues. If we cut down the number of penalties we give away it’s going to make a big difference.”

Play Video 0:53 Warren Gatland searches for positives after Lions lose to Blues – video

The Lions have slight fitness doubts over the Irish centre Jared Payne who aggravated a calf problem in Wednesday’s game, and the Welsh fly-half Dan Biggar, who failed a head injury assessment. Both are unlikely to feature this weekend when a number of likely Test starters are expected to be involved. After Christchurch the team will travel to Dunedin to face the Highlanders on Tuesday.

The scrum-half Rhys Webb said the result would make no difference to the squad’s morale. “We’re not going to drop our heads, we’ll review the game, learn from it and move on,” he said. “There’s no sense of panic. We knew it was going to be tough, we knew it was going to be a challenge coming over. These teams are pretty special and the strength in depth they’ve got in these teams is amazing. They can make tries from anywhere and score tries from anywhere. We just need to stay alert for the full 80 minutes.”

He also paid tribute to Sonny Bill Williams, who had a highly influential game in the Blues midfield and helped to set up a spectacular winning try for Ihaia West. “He’s a monster, isn’t he?” Webb said. “Everyone knows what he can do; he got them over the gain-line and he’s got that class about him. We know he’s going to be a threat in a couple of weeks’ time, so it was good to play against him now. He’s special, he’s an athlete and he’s world‑class. He showed a couple of glimpses today of what he can do. He’s been out with injury, but he’s coming back into a bit of form now. We need to be on our money to stop him in a couple of weeks’ time.”