British and Irish Lions boss Gatland was left frustrated with what he felt were deliberate tactics from the All Blacks diving "blindly" at Murray's standing leg whenever he launched a box kick in Saturday's 30-15 defeat to New Zealand.
"No excuse in terms of the result", said Lions head coach Gatland.
Gatland, though, said his team showed enough at Eden Park to give them a foundation to win the second Test in Wellington next week and return to Auckland for a decider in two weeks, even if they left a couple of opportunities on the field.
"The disappointing thing about it is that we created a number of chances and obviously played some pretty good rugby, we just didn't finish it off". They didn't come out and play champagne rugby, they were very direct off nine.
Kieran Read had 17 gain line busting runs, Jerome Kaino looked similarly unsafe and Sam Cane did his best Richie McCaw impersonation in a stellar performance.Whereas the Lions relied on the counterattack as their only way to the tryline, the All Blacks produced offload after to offload to ensure a lightning quick pace and it was those offloads which won them the game. Let us know what you think in the comments.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen was emphatic that his players should take time to celebrate their 30-15 win in an extraordinary test - their first against the Lions in 12 years - because of the many hours of hard work that had gone in to its achievement.
"And there's several areas where we need to be better at the set-piece".
"There's something going on there that is not quite right, so we need to find out what it is".
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It was a walk in the park for New Zealand as they easily beat The Lions, with the highlight for Irish fans being the Sean O'Brien try. No extras from Owen Farrell but it got them to 13-8 and that was the half time score.
It started with a Liam Williams break, the fullback leaving Sonny Bill Williams clutching at air as he steamed into open play and found Daly, who offloaded to Davies, who found a handsome support line from Sean O'Brien for a stunning try.That left the score at 13-8 as both teams headed for the sheds, the game poised for a fantastic final 40 minutes.
Rieko Ioane had a quiet first-half by his own high standards but the All Blacks speedster was a different animal after the break.
Rhys Webb scored the Lions' second try on full-time to at least give the visitors hope ahead of next week's second Test in Wellington.
Skipper Peter O'Mahony added: "We were happy with some of the opportunities we created, now we've got to regroup". Twice in the game the tourists dropped their intensity in the European way when a penalty was given against them, expecting the opposition to take the easy kick at goal, while Aaron Smith sharply tapped and the All Blacks' peerless hands turned a certain three points into seven.
Player ratingsNew Zealand: Ben Smith 6, Israel Dagg 7, Ryan Crotty 6, Sonny Bill Williams 7, Rieko Ioane 7, Beauden Barrett 9, Aaron Smith 8, Joe Moody 8, Codie Taylor 7, Owen Franks 7, Brodie Retallick 8, Sam Whitelock 7, Jerome Kaino 7, Sam Cane 7, Kieran Read 9.
Replacements: N Harris, W Crockett, C Faumuina, S Barrett, A Savea, TJ Perenara, A Cruden/L Sopoaga, A Lienert-Brown. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, yet Itoje would probably have made much more impact from the start.
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