League: Kiwis coach calls for calm after slaughter

Key Points:

New Zealand coach Gary Kemble has pleaded for patience after the Kiwis suffered a demoralising 44-0 defeat by Great Britain in the second test in Hull.

The hosts ran in eight tries to record their biggest-ever winning margin over the Kiwis and clinch their first series victory in 14 years following their 20-14 win in the first test.

More embarrassingly, it is the second time in third tests that the Kiwis have been left scoreless after Australia inflicted a 58-0 thrashing in Kemble's first game in charge.

Kemble has had to put his faith in several inexperienced players as a host of big names are unavailable through injury.

The under-fire Kiwis coach admits some of his youngsters have failed to deliver and although he will undergo some soul-searching this week, he believes he is making progress.

"They're hurting badly at the moment but they're a very close unit, he said. They've always got on well with each other and I think they'll come out of this fired up.

"This is a new team, a young team, we've got another team at home, so I'm pretty happy with the way they're learning all the time.

"But hey, there's no excuses. We got beaten by a big score again and we can't keep getting beaten by these scores.

"We've got some youngsters that are coming through and putting up their hand at test-match level, some of them aren't, and were finding out pretty quickly," he added.

" We're finding the right ones, and once we've found them all, we'll go ahead with that. I'll have to review myself as well and see what I'm doing wrong."

The Kiwis fell behind after just 74 seconds when Great Britain captain Jamie Peacock crossed following a surging run through the Kiwis defence.

The hosts were awarded a penalty in the build-up to the try and although the Kiwis were poor in possession throughout, Kemble felt that decision did not help their cause.

"When you have a game of footy where things go against you a little bit and you don't get the football, it's unfortunate," he said.

"We didn't get to have the ball in the first half. Sometimes that was because of decisions by the officials, sometimes it was our fault.

"In the first 20-25 minutes we didn't have the ball so we were tackling all the time. That's when fatigue sets in and we started dropping the footy.

"We're disappointed because we trained really well this week, especially on addressing the attacking end."

The Kiwis will now hope to restore some pride in the final test in Wigan next week before rounding off their European tour with a one-off test against France in Paris.

Kemble is confident the Kiwis can bounce back and has already confirmed there will be changes for next week.

"We'll have to analyse everything and we've got a couple of injuries but I think it might be time to replace a couple of players," he said.

- NZPA