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The stony faced stare is sobering enough. But a Wayne Bennett dressing down is a whole new level of grief – a fact the New Zealand World Cup team can now vouch for.
The idyllic surrounds of the Kiwi rugby league team’s Gold Coast base for this week may scream “holiday”.
However, “stern words” from NZ assistant Bennett have ensured the Kiwis are in no mood to relax in the countdown to their must-win Cup clash with PNG at Skilled Park tomorrow night.
Kiwi captain Nathan Cayless today admitted Bennett had “got stuck in” to the team along with head coach Stephen Kearney in the fall-out over their opening 30-6 loss to Australia.
“Yeah they did, and it was definitely warranted,” Cayless said on the Gold Coast today.
“We reviewed that game earlier this week. We put that behind us and we needed to do that.
“Coming up here it was made pretty clear that we weren’t here for a holiday. We’ve got a lot of hard work to do and a very tough match (against PNG).”
Bennett may have let rip at his new team – but Cayless credited the same man with rebuilding their confidence after being demoralised by Australia.
Cayless said the Kiwis could already see the benefit of NZ’s controversial decision to recruit the six-time NRL premiership coach for their Cup tilt.
“Wayne’s had a lot of success. A big part of that is he makes his players believe in what they are doing and believe in themselves,” Cayless said.
“Everyone has pretty much written us off for the tournament after last weekend.
“But we haven’t thrown in the towel. There’s a lot of footy left.”
Initially the second-ranked favourites for the World Cup title, New Zealand have blown out to $10 behind England with some bookmakers after their first round thumping.
They come up against $801 title long shots PNG as one of the shortest priced favourites to win a World Cup pool match at $1.01.
The Kumuls are an incredible $13.
Yet all the pressure is on New Zealand to win – and doesn’t Cayless know it.
He certainly didn’t need to be told the Kiwis were on a hiding to nothing against an unorthodox PNG buoyed by their first-round, 10-point loss to England.
“We let ourselves down last week, we let our country down and we let our fans down,” Cayless said.
“We’ve got over the loss to Australia. We know we can play a lot better. We will come up against a very physical and committed team (but) we want to do our country and family proud.”
Kearney and Bennett made changes but stuck with Thomas Leuluai at halfback.
Kearney was again forced to defend Leuluai, who was quiet against Australia, and would not reveal whether he would rotate new face Issac (Issac) Luke between No.7 and No.9 jerseys.
Asked if it was a crunch game for Leuluai, Kearney said: “It’s a crunch game for everyone in our circumstances.
“I expected a bit more out of everyone (against Australia), so did the players themselves – but that was five days ago we are concentrating now on PNG.”
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