Maguire confident Kiwis
Kiwis coach Michael Maguire concedes his team hasn’t played to its potential yet at the World Cup, but he remains confident it can beat Australia.
The Kiwis v Kangaroos semifinal at Elland Road in Leeds is one where few pundits are picking a New Zealand victory, even though the Kiwis are ranked No 1 in the world and were victorious when these countries met in 2018.
But the Kiwis haven’t always played like a team capable of winning the World Cup over the past month. They were scrappy against Lebanon and Ireland and had to fight back from being down by 12 points in the second half to defeat Fiji in the semifinals.
However, Maguire believes the Kiwis can get close to their best in tomorrow morning’s semifinal. ‘‘We’ve got a lot more in us, I won’t disagree there,’’ Maguire said. ‘‘But I’ve seen passages of play where I’ve been really pleased. So what better time to make sure we have our best game? Going into a semifinal against Australia.’’ Kiwis captain Jesse Bromwich said Maguire gave the team a spray after the Fiji game and admitted their performance was unacceptable.
Maguire played down the level of his rant, but while he confirmed he got get stuck in, he was happy with parts of their game.
‘‘It was spoken about that I had a conversation with the players after the game,’’ he said.
‘‘They know, they all understand the expectations and what we’re here for.
‘‘We’ve got through the Fijian game and learned a lot out of it. It was nice to see the players come back and show the resilience that we’ve spoken about.’’
The Kiwis need to win the battle in the middle to have a chance of beating the Kangaroos and advancing to the final and it’s where Maguire’s team is the strongest, even if Jared WaereaHargreaves has been ruled out through injury.
‘‘It’s going to be a great challenge,’’ Maguire said. ‘‘Both teams have plenty of players who have been playing in finals series and have been playing at the top end of the game.
‘‘It’s nice to see a lot of the players I have, were playing in a grand final or if not, very close to it.
‘‘So they’ve played at the highest level in recent times, which is really pleasing with what we’re going to go into.
‘‘I believe I’ve got a very strong team and a good team,’’ he added.
‘‘We know we’re playing the title contenders. They’ve got that status, but we know what we’ve got to do and how we’ve got to play to achieve what we want.’’