The North Queensland forward demonstrated his ability to play long minutes with a relentless 77-minute contribution seeing him carve out a game-high 271 metres from 24 carries of the ball.
The 23-year-old Dally M winner felt the Kiwis were still honing their combinations and familiarising themselves with the nuances of each other's play and expects further improvement as the tournament progresses.
Despite showing plenty of defensive grit and resilience in the three-tries-to-two result, the Kiwis will need to be more clinical if they are to topple the Kangaroos in Sunday's clash at Coventry.
"We're still learning to play as a team together, obviously with the amount of boys coming from different clubs, but that's a stepping stone we achieved [yesterday]," he said.
"Everyone's slowly learning how each player plays and hopefully next week, everyone's a step better than they were [against England].
"That's probably one of the biggest challenges coming into any team that has different players from different teams and they all have different ways that they play.
"We definitely went out there and had a good crack at it and we just could have been a bit better in a few areas but overall we achieved what we wanted."
Taumalolo praised halfback Shaun Johnson, who slotted the match-winning field goal in the 65th minute, after coming in for intense criticism following the Kiwis' last-start defeat in Perth.
Like the wider team, Taumalolo believes Johnson is getting back to playing his best after getting through just his second game in two months since the end of the Warriors' NRL season.
"Obviously Shaun played a huge role in our win and that's just a stepping stone for him.
"We all know the Shaun Johnson of old, the right-foot step and taking on the line, and it was good to see a couple of glimpses of him returning to that form.
"Hopefully we see a lot more of him running the ball on the whole tour and continuing that form into next week's game."
