Maguire calls on Kiwis to improve after Fiji scare
Kiwis coach Michael Maguire admitted there were anxious moments watching New Zealand defeat Fiji 24-18 in the World Cup quarterfinal, but he’s ready to move on to this week’s showdown against Australia.
It was by far the best match of this World Cup, played at MKM Stadium in Hull in front of a woefully small crowd of 7080, with the Kiwis having to come back from being down by 12 points early in the second half.
Eventually they got the job done, with a Jordan Rapana try in the final minute hiding the fact of how close Fiji came to recording a huge upset for the second World Cup in a row.
‘‘It was a close game, all credit to Fiji, they were able to put a bit of pressure on us and we created a fair bit of pressure on ourselves at times,’’ Maguire said.
‘‘But I’m looking forward to this week, the eye has always been on getting through and getting to the semis. So we’re there now and that’s the biggest thing we have to concentrate on.’’
Even when the Kiwis got over a poor start, which had them down 12-0 after 20 minutes, they still weren’t able to dominate Fiji and the game reached a nailbiting climax, before Rapana kicked a controversial penalty with 10 minutes to go.
‘‘That aged me a bit, but as I said to the players, we’ve got through now,’’ Maguire said. ‘‘We got a fair bit out of that, it wasn’t the style of what we would have liked to have played, but I was pleased they stuck to the plan and that’s what got them through.
‘‘I’ve said many times over the last few weeks how tight they are and I think that’s what pulled them through.
‘‘They had to dig in, Fiji came at us, put pressure on and we probably pushed a few passes that we wouldn’t normally push.’’
The Kiwis haven’t looked like a team
that’s ranked No 1 in the world throughout this World Cup, even though they’ve won all four of their games.
To go up against the Kangaroos on Saturday morning (NZ time), Maguire knows they’ll need to improve.
‘‘We need to be better in areas of our game. You can see that,’’ he said.
‘‘They jumped us a bit at the start and we put a bit of pressure on ourselves and you can’t do that to the teams we’re playing.
‘‘We’ll improve. One thing about the group is they’re pretty strong on how they want to go about things and they had a good discussion then about what we did tonight and we’ll take that into this week.
‘‘There are areas of our game where we can’t give away cheap loose ball, or errors, or penalties.’’
The key moment came when the Kiwis were controversially awarded a penalty well inside Fiji’s half with 10 minutes to go.
It appeared as if Joey Manu had lost the ball, which is what referee Gerard Sutton thought.
But Manu asked for a captain’s challenge and the view of the video referee, Tom Grant, was that the ball was stripped, so penalty to New Zealand.
‘‘I was just hoping it came off,’’ Manu said of his thinking to ask for the captain’s challenge.
‘‘I’m not too sure, I sort of felt a strip, there was only a bit of time left and why not have a shot? It ended up working in our favour and really helped.’’
In the other semifinal, England, who beat Papua New Guinea 46-6 with winger Tommy Makinson scoring five of their nine tries in Wigan, will face Samoa or Tonga, who meet this morning in Warrington.