Harry Grant's telling admission after Kangaroos embarrassed in Test final
The Kangaroos hooker has taken responsibility for his poor showing in the Pacific Championships final.
Harry Grant has taken his share of responsibility for Australia's shock record Test defeat against New Zealand on Saturday. The hooker was left to rue a string of errors in the Pacific Championships decider where the Kiwis ran out 30-0 victors.
Grant came off the bench and replaced Ben Hunt in the 29th minute but struggled to make an impact in his 38-minute stint. While he could argue the forwards weren't making metres, Grant had two carries for just three metres and missed five tackles.
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The 25-year-old told NRL.com the defeat will take some getting over as unlike in the NRL he can't step out next week and make amends. “We struggled to build pressure and I felt like I contributed to that by making a couple of errors and not contributing to the way we wanted to play,” Grant said.
“We didn’t have momentum (like the week before) and we just didn’t wrestle it back. We had moments there which were 50-50 and could have changed momentum, but they went in New Zealand’s favour. It’s hard to finish the season with a game like that which you will dwell on. During the year in the NRL you know you have next week to bounce back, so this might linger a little bit.”
It wasn't just Grant who suffered defensive woes with the Kangaroos missing a whopping 51 tackles in the final, with Isaah Yeo, the only player not to miss a tackle. Grant says while it isn't unheard of to face the same team back to back, the Kangaroos weren't prepared well enough for the Kiwis different tactics.
“It’s something you need to be wary of when you have a win against a team and then have to play them the following week,” Grant said. “They had come off a loss so knew where their improvement was and what to work on, with a week to focus on that.
“You never want to lose games, but you knew that they would go up another level and unfortunately we went down a couple of levels and didn’t fire our shots. They ended up playing the type of footy we wanted to play.”
Greg Alexander blasts Kangaroos defeat in final
Penrith great Greg Alexander was one of the harsher critics of the Kangaroos' performance, labelling the effort as 'embarrassing' only a year after winning the World Cup in the UK.
“The Kiwis needed to make a good start, they needed to be strong and aggressive and they needed to keep it going because this is Australian side is a fantastic side,” Alexander said. “But the Kiwis embarrassed them (Kangaroos) this afternoon. It’s an embarrassing result for Australian rugby league.”
While plenty of the attention will turn on the Kangaroos' effort, Cooper Cronk was full of praise for New Zealand's ability to bounce back. “You’ve got a contribution from everyone for New Zealand and they just absolutely handcuffed Australia at different stages,” Cronk added. “Tremendous performance.”
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