""They understand it is one step in a pretty long journey for us. It was a significant step, there's no doubt about that, but we've moved on from that and understand it's going to take nothing short of our best performance tomorrow and we've prepared that way."
The skies were clear for today's session with no sign of the torrential rain that greeted the team earlier in the week and Kearney was confident the field would be conducive to a fast and open game.
"It was a lot drier than our session that we had on Wednesday and the breeze had picked up a bit today. It looks pretty hard and fast out there now. I think the conditions of the ground will be great for a great game of footy and I don't think it will benefit either team."
Kearney felt his players would be better off after last week's initial hit-out and warned their cohesion would need to improve after Samoa's promising display against England.
"It needs to be because the opposition, their cohesion will be better after a game, and I'm pretty confident it will be."
The Kiwis cannot afford a repeat of their slow start against Australia and a lot of attention had gone into ensuring they hit the ground running tomorrow.
"The gun went off and we were still sitting in the blocks so for us the focus is on making sure we get that right. We have some defensive and attacking structures that we have expectations about and we've worked really hard on making improvements in those areas."
Samoa coach Matt Parish was downplaying his side's chances and was adamant there are no weaknesses in the Kiwis line-up.
"Not a lot in there. They're one of the strongest Kiwis teams I've seen," Parish said.
"They've got two very good halves in Kieran Foran and Shaun Johnson and their forward pack is big and mobile and got offloads and footwork in them. Young [Jason] Taumalolo has certainly added another dimension to their pack and you've got a guy like Issac Luke coming out if dummy half and he's as good a number nine in the world as Cameron Smith so we're going to have our hands full."
Attending media were prevented from watching the majority of the Kiwis' session and guided into a room with partitions blocking any view of the field.
Kearney denied he had any surprises in store while it was hinted that the secrecy was more to do with the tradition of the newer players performing the haka in their undies.
"I didn't know it was blocked off but no there are no aces [up my sleeve]. It was more part of a team ritual that they have and it would have been a good idea that you didn't see that."
