League: Kiwi fumbles cost them dear yet again

By PETER JESSUP

Great Britain 26 New Zealand 24


The Kiwis' Tri-Nations campaign finished in fumbles as they ran out of time to redress their errors during a two-point loss to Great Britain at Hull, letting slip a halftime lead for the third time in the series.

But at least they bounced back to come home the stronger with the last two tries, averting what could have been humiliation against what is a very good Lions team.

Again, momentary lapses cost dearly as a 12-4 lead at the break was shadowed by four Great Britain tries in 13 minutes. The Kiwis looked out on their feet and it seemed a rout was on the way.

But they were rallied by stand-in captain Paul Rauhihi with a huge charge up the middle of the field and veteran Nigel Vagana changing the angle of the attack to send Alex Chan under the bar in his second test.

Wing Shontayne Hape, who played another solid game in his second test, scored wide after some sleight of hand with the ball from Vagana with three minutes to go.

They could have won it.

But then there were dropped balls, indecision from a late scrum and a grubber on the last tackle when a high ball to produce a lottery for the take was the better option.

"We came up short for 10 minutes in each game," said coach Daniel Anderson, ruing another game of "what-if?" as the Kiwis finished third of the teams with just one draw, against Australia at Albany.

There had apparently been emotional scenes at a team dinner the night before the Hull game, where players stood to speak about what the Kiwi jersey and representing their country in the series meant to them.

There were more after the test in the dressing room beneath the Hull Stadium when injured captain Ruben Wiki spoke about learning from their mistakes and Anderson thanked them for their commitment and for always playing with pride.

The Kiwis used 26 players in the series, with four withdrawing after one game to have surgery ordered by their clubs (Matt Utai, Joe Galuvao, Tony Puletua and Lesley Vainikolo) and Sonny Bill Williams missing the last, Motu Tony playing at Albany but not touring after the birth of his first child and Wiki invalided out of the last game.

Twelve players made their first tour and eight made their test debuts.

Rauhihi led by example with a massive 149m gain, second only to Lions wing Brian Carney with a massive 219m, but Carney made his on the outside while Rauhihi's were much harder to get up the middle.

"I suppose when I look back tomorrow there will be some satisfaction in my own game but right now everyone is hurting," he said.

As captain, he'd asked everyone to put in. "They all did and I was happy with that."

In the build-up to their final game the team had not wanted to dwell overly on the second-half woes that have beset them through the series - in four games they have scored 48 first-half points against 26, then scored only a combined 16 in the four second halves while letting in 68.

Rauhihi couldn't put his finger on the problem. "But we didn't think talk would fix it - we needed action, not talk.

"It's a mental thing, we struggled throughout the tournament with it. We didn't take them lightly [after the break], we knew what to expect, we just didn't cope well with it," he said of the repeat attack wide down the wings that brought the Lions three quick tries yesterday.

Coach Anderson was happy that several players performed consistently at the highest level - Nathan and Jason Cayless, Rauhihi, the Anderson brothers, Roy Asotasi, Thomas Leuluai and Brent Webb.

The latter two would learn from their mistakes and gain in confidence.

Hape, Williams and Dene Halatau had come on in leaps and bounds, the coach said. "The future looks pretty strong. We need to keep our experienced players around so our young players learn from them."

Anderson agreed they had improved only "minimally" during the tournament while the other two sides had developed more. The injury-enforced rotation had not aided that.

This tournament has been a big financial success, which gives momentum for further contests.

The players, although warning of overload, are all apparently keen to play at the highest level.

The NZRL will begin its review this week after the squad returns home tomorrow.

There was no thought by the board of changing coach. Anderson has another year on his contract.

That may not have been the case had Chan, then Hape, not scored.