Michael Maguire wants his Kiwis to be more resilient and disciplined as he admits some of his rookies may not have understood the identity of the jersey against Australia.
New Zealand completed at just 63 per cent in Friday night’s loss to the Kangaroos, as Australia completely outplayed them .
Now one-and-a-half years into his role as New Zealand coach, Maguire has ushered in 16 new Kiwis in that times – with four rookies playing on Friday night.
But he conceded after the 26-4 loss that perhaps his newest players hadn’t grasped the requirements to have success at Test level.
“We had a number of young guys come in and play and unfortunately they didn’t get what this jersey is all about at this present moment,” Maguire said.
“We have high expectations in the jersey.
“It’s a big thing that these boys need to understand – at this level, it’s one play or it might be back-to-back sets or those sorts of little things that you need to build.
“We spoke about that but we weren’t able to execute it. We need to own that and be accountable to what we need to do in the next week.”
Crucially, Australia made the Kiwis pay for their errors on Friday night.
Two tries came off intercepts, while another was on the back of a seven-tackle set from a poor Shaun Johnson bomb.
Johnson in particular had a difficult night at WIN Stadium, no doubt leaving Maguire with a choice to make on whether to return Kieran Foran to the fold against Great Britain on Sunday.
“As a playing group we have identified certain things we want to build in the jersey and that (discipline) is certainly something we talk about,” Maguire said.
“The identity of how you play Test match football, and coming down to one play. To win that fight through an 80-minute game.
“If we’re looking at where we want to get to, you’ve got to play that game.
“Australia did that to us, they completed high, built pressure and put the balls into the corners.
“At this level you have to be able to do that. Unfortunately for us we rolled it dead a few times and put a lot of work into us.”
