Lee I have to differ with some of your assessments. I was disappointed in Deegan and thought he made a number of poor decisions most particularly not giving his back line the opportunities that they needed to win this game. The forward contest in this game was immense and extremely physical and the Kiwis got the upper hand- just - but enough to get them home. The Ozboys looked best when they went wide but it didn't happen nearly often enough - barely at all in the first half until the later stages when they looked very potent. I would have thought that the half time message would have been to exploit the opportunities that we clearly had in strength and speed out wide and this resulted in a great try early in the 2nd half but it didn't happen often enough to put the game to bed after the boys took a 16-10 lead. Deegan didn't count heads very well and missed opportunities by going on his own on a couple of occasions when the right decision was to send the ball wide. Mind you he wasn't helped by Tepai's one dimensional play. Because of this Kellaway got few opportunities as did Milne but the latter was most impressive with what he did when his chances came. I'd much prefer to see him wearing the number 12 jumper with someone like H Jones at 13 to take maximum advantage of the opportunities Milne's strength, footwork and hands would provide.
I agree with you about Hanigan's contribution as he was a real standout in the forwards as was McCalman when he was restituted to his best position at 7. Faksaosilea was also strong until he went off injured. I was very impressed with a number of the Kiwi forwards with Apasai (2), Chongkit (5) and Ioane (8) all being very strong. Their captain Jacobsen (6) was also very aggressive and played with that on the edge play we have long seen from Kiwi forwards at senior level. The Kiwis seemed well on the wrong side of the penalty count and also had a player yellow carded so did well to come back and win with their 10 McKenzie converting from out wide to give them the slenderest of winning margins at 17-16.
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