KEY POINTS:
The Kiwis have reached the World Cup mark they needed to maintain credibility but the means of their scrappy 32-22 defeat of England in the tournament semifinal posed no threat to champions Australia.
Best news - they started well. Coach Stephen Kearney's switch of Thomas Leuluai to hooker with Nathan Fien starting at halfback proved to be a winner, and they finished without injuries.
Bad news - three tries and 16-0 up after 23 minutes they sat back and watched England score easy points, they let the ball bounce near or in the in-goal and, after five weeks in camp, they showed they still cannot catch the ball and hold it in the tackle.
The error rate from both teams was appalling and New Zealand won simply because the English made more mistakes.
Kearney promised the squad a hard week in preparation for the final game next Saturday night at the same venue, Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, where a late influx of England fans saw the crowd push out to 25,659. Ticket sales for the 50,500-seat stadium were good before the tournament began and it may sell out to provide an intimidating atmosphere that will not help New Zealand's cause.
Asked what they needed to work on, Kearney replied: "How big's your pad? It's a wonderful achievement to be able to contest next week's final, but I'm still disappointed with a few aspects of our game. You've got to get a lot of things right on the day to be competitive against Australia."
England faced the challenge of the haka as they should have last weekend but they did nothing to improve their defence out wide and the Kiwis scored three quick tries through the backs. Right wing Sam Perrett benefited from quick hands, Leuluai showed the ball to take advantage of dummy-runners then delivered to fullback Lance Hohaia to score, then Hohaia sent a wide pass to put Jerome Leuluai in down the left side.
When the Kiwis lost the ball near their line, England captain Jamie Peacock went over. After another mistake lock Kevin Sinfield took the ball from the back of the scrum and ran into a close defence then kicked through for Danny McGuire to score at minute-39 and make it 16-10 at the break.
The teams traded mistakes, should-have-been tries and near-tries.
At 22-16 going into the last quarter there was push-and-shove after Hohaia objected to being carried backwards and threw the ball at Jon Wilkin, who clipped Hohaia on the chin with an open hand. Both stupid acts when a place in the World Cup final might have been decided by possession from a penalty.
As the game closed, wing Ade Garden made a couple of bad blunders, trying to trap a kick with his foot and missing, then losing the ball forward. So the Kiwis forced a goal-line drop-out to rob England of time and territory and put Benji Marshall over for a win coach Kearney said he never felt confident about.
England coach Tony Smith was stiff-faced, bundled out before the final after the biggest expenditure on a World Cup side ever. "We under-achieved. We wanted to lift our place in the world pecking order and unfortunately we've stayed where we are," Smith said.
He took another sideswipe at the NRL style of play. "Perhaps we need to make a decision whether we want an entertaining game or whether we want to be number one in the world. I am not complaining about the rules, but they are different and it is difficult for us to play the way we want to play under those interpretations."
His captain Jamie Peacock was clearly restraining himself in an interview he didn't want to be at. "We had a dig but sometimes having a dig isn't good enough."
The Kiwis were better when it mattered but produced what Kearney reckoned was around 30 minutes of football of a standard that would not compete with the Australians next weekend. "I'm mindful of what we're capable of and we showed that for 30 minutes. We allowed them back with errors, losing the ball in the tackle and bad play-the-balls. That was disappointing. It was not acceptable."
He rated Leuluai their best player and was pleased the only Super League Kiwi had finally delivered. He liked Fien's game at halfback, too.
The rest played well at times and, with the exception of captain Nathan Cayless, either made mistakes, took bad options or failed to be there when required.
