Rugby League: Mad moment ends dream of test sweep

One moment of stupidity cost the Kiwis their chance of a first clean sweep of a test series in Britain. At 31, it will be one of Stephen Kearney's last tests.

Doubtless in retirement he will wonder why he tried to punch the ball out of the hands of a player already tackled, right in front of the Kiwi posts and with a two-point lead and two minutes remaining, allowing Great Britain to goal for 14-14.

Bang went his chance at history, and the team's with it.

Kearney had been prone to that sort of brain explosion, but in recent seasons had eliminated that silly play from his game. He could not have picked a worse time to revert to it.

But the Kiwis should have put away the Brits long before that.

The second test was in stark contrast to the first. Coach Gary Freeman had told the Kiwis to tone down the speed-ball flick-play they had adopted in earlier games, including last week's opening international.

But they seemed to take that to the opposite extreme, producing one-out football short on support play.

They did not make their one-on-one tackles with enough precision to stop Great Britain's momentum.

The scrambling defence was great at times, preventing what looked certain touchdowns, but if the line had not been breached so often, the scramble would not have been required.

Twice the ball went to centre Nigel Vagana on the last tackle and once to Logan Swann. The result: ineffectual kicks and easy turnovers.

Freeman's use of the interchange remained confusing. Monty Betham and Logan Swann were not used until after the break.

Betham appeared more effective than Ali Lauiti'iti, but was subbed more quickly.

You have to wonder about the use of four forwards on the bench, although the best back option, David Vaealiki, might still have had a flu hangover. You also have to wonder why Stacey Jones was not tried as the goalkicker after Richard Swain missed two early, easy conversions.

The Kiwis were lucky the Brits still don't appear to have worked them out. The home side look to have more speed in the three-quarters, but have yet to employ it.

And though they used a short kicking game to much better effect than in the opening test, they kept going to that instead of varying tactics to try to take the Kiwis off guard.

Now that we do have a decider, it would be great if Sky found some money to send over a Kiwi-friendly commentary team. Or buy an unbiased commentary from an Aussie or something.

The effort from Eddie Hemmings and Mike Stephenson yesterday was as loaded and one-eyed as you will get.

According to Hemmings, Kiwis five-eighth Lance Hohaia, 175cm and 83kg, "maliciously went for" the head of Brits captain Andrew Farrell, 188cm and 101kg.Farrell was unaffected by it and a fair penalty was awarded for Hohaia's recklessness.

But when Pommy prop Paul Anderson left the much smaller Kiwi wing Henry Fa'afili flattened after a high shot, Hemmings' take was that Anderson "just slipped a bit over the top."

He accused the visitors of turning tackled players to expose ribs and kidneys to a third defender coming in. What rubbish.

But neither he nor Stephenson saw Paul Sculthorpe punch Clinton Toopi when the latter was tackled to his knees and head down, not looking. Thank God for an Australian ref and touch judge.

Whistler Steve Clark kept good discipline and ruled a straight game.

There could be no complaint about Clark's awarding of the decisive penalty. Kearney made sure of it by taking two swipes at the ball, so Clark had time to focus and catch the second if he had missed the first.

There would have been plenty of complaint about Kearney if Great Britain had snatched a win. But when they set for the drop goal in the dying seconds the ball went to halfback Paul Deacon rather than better exponents in five-eighth Danny Orr or Farrell.

Deacon's kick sliced a couple of metres to the left of the upright and as the cameras turned back from the ball to his face you didn't need to be a lip-reader to work out his exclamation.

Probably the same expression was spat out by Freeman about two minutes earlier and doubtless heavily over-used in households throughout the country.