Benji Marshall admits that New Zealand did not play well enough - Rugby League
While talking to reporters on Monday, October 17, Benji Marshall, New Zealand’s skipper acknowledged that he is devastated by his side’s poor performance at Ausgrid Stadium against Kangaroos, which ended in sheer embarrassment for them with a defeat of 42-6
on Sunday.
Marshall stated that his side failed completely in measuring up to their own expectations and said, "We've got some pretty disappointed boys in the sheds. We expect better from ourselves. This is international rugby league, we are representing our country
and, quite frankly, we all agreed that this wasn't good enough. This will be a big learning curve for us and we only completed not even half our sets in the first half and you can't give any team a 26-point head start. We've got a lot of work to do."
The Kiwi coach, Stephen Kearney, was also not pleased with his side’s overall performance. According to the coach, his side did not hold on to the game too well. He also added that the squad's performance was lack lustre in both halfs of the game, but what
really brought their game tumbling down was their initial twenty minutes.
The coach gave more details and said that they had lost their grip during the initial stint of the game which resulted in poor results. He further added that if their side had not loosened their grip at that time, they would have been on the right side of
the celebration.
The skipper filled in the on field details and said that if they had stopped the initial tries from getting scored by the opponents then the situation would have been entirely different. That way there still would have created a lot of room for Kiwis to
crawl their way back into the game.
However, despite the fall out during Sunday’s clash, Marshall said that he is proud of his team and agreed that they have the potential to win, which had not been the case against Kangaroos.
He further added that with the right sort of efforts put into the game, future matches can be easily won.
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