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HAMILTON. — Jack Nowell scored a sparkling try double as the British and Irish Lions ended their mid-week slump in style with a 34-6 win over the Chiefs yesterday, just four days ahead of the first All Blacks Test.In Hamilton, home town of Lions coach Warren Gatland, the tourists scored four tries and stopped the Chiefs from crossing the line, providing a morale booster for Gatland’s men as the opening test looms on Saturday.

While the team to play the All Blacks in Auckland is probably already settled, plenty of the Lions’ second-stringers put their hands up to feature later in the test series. The result ended a sequence of mid-week defeats as the Lions, who earlier lost to the Auckland Blues and Otago Highlanders, starved the Chiefs of attacking opportunities.

Nowell’s second try showed the tourists can also play with flair, as they took the ball the length of the field and through 10 pairs of hands before the Englishman swerved past two defenders to finish.

It was a potential banana-skin match for Gatland, as Hamilton has proved a graveyard for international teams in the past. Gatland himself was a hooker for the Chiefs when they humbled the Lions 38-10 in 1993 and he even scored a try against the team he now coaches.

He was on the other side of the scoreline last year when the Chiefs thrashed his Wales side 40-7 in a tour match. Before the match, the Chiefs performed a haka in front of the sell-out 30 000 crowd.

The Lions made a promising start in clear conditions, going on the attack after Courtney Lawes stole a Chiefs lineout ball.

But the failure to convert chances that has dogged the tour returned as they worked it through 20 phases, only to fail when Liam Williams knocked on. Poor discipline could have also cost them when Harlequins prop Joe Marler was sin-binned for a late tackle, but his replacement Alan Dell excelled.

Winger Nowell dived a pile of bodies to score the first try of the match in the 25th minute after some eye-catching build-up play from Williams and Dan Biggar. — AFP.