Glenn Anderson made an inspired positional swap which led to the relay team finishing second.
New Zealand had mixed fortunes but finished strongly to be just one point behind Italy on the second day of pool competition at the World Lifesaving championships in Berlin yesterday.
A change in order worked well for the men's relay team which qualified sixth fastest for the A
final.
What turned out to be an inspired decision of swapping Andrew McMillan and Steve Kent paid dividends as they finished second behind a very strong Chinese team which set a world record to claim gold.
"Glenn's [team captain Glenn Anderson] decision to change me and Steve around worked a treat and we smashed it," said McMillan.
"It was great to go under the old world record and we are happy with second place," said Steven Kent, youngest brother of New Zealand Olympic medley specialist, Dean Kent.
The team is in high spirits even though they are one point behind Italy who are on 302 points with one day left in the pool before heading north to Rostock for the final two days of open water competition.
Their big advantage is a 24-point lead over Australia.
"Italy have loaded their team with 12 swimmers so they've been able to rotate their guys around a lot more and that's why they are doing so well in the pool," said Anderson.
"They should be a factor on the beach though, and that's why we've focused on what the Aussies are doing. Yesterday [day one] was pretty special and things were a lot harder today but we stuck together and we've got another big day in the pool tomorrow with some of our better events."
Coach John Bryant is also pleased.
"We're in a good position at the moment and the Aussies are definitely worries - they threw everything at us today [day two] and we hung in there. Tomorrow's programme should suit us a lot better and we're pretty confident we can take a decent lead on to the beach."
