Twelve months ago the Kiwis were staring down the barrel of relegation to the Pacific Bowl.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having staved off demotion with a big win over the Kumuls, they now enter Sunday’s Pacific Cup final at a sold-out CommBank Stadium as favourites.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A victory over Samoa will confirm New Zealand’s status as a genuine contender for next year’s World Cup and send a warning shot to the Kangaroos.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s a remarkable turnaround for a team many had dismissed amid a wave of excitement about the rise of Tonga and Samoa.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New Zealand coach Stacey Jones has relished the lack of attention as he’s quietly built a team he feels is capable of winning both the Pacific Championships and World Cup.<\/p>\n
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Kiwis v Tonga XIII – Week 3, 2025<\/p>\n
Sunday, he said, will be the day they emerge from the shadows.<\/p>\n
“We’ve gone under the radar a little bit,” Jones said. “It’s rightly so as far as the noise that’s out there and you’ve got to take your hat off to the Samoan and Tongan fans. It’s been great for the game to see the interest around it.<\/p>\n
“Every game is an opportunity [to make a statement]. We had an opportunity last week to put together a performance at Eden Park and the team did that.<\/p>\n
“This is another opportunity to do something but the problem is we’ve got another team that wants to do the same thing and they’re a very good team.”<\/p>\n
New Zealand’s 2024 campaign was hampered by a string of injuries to key players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jahrome Hughes, Moses Leota, Briton Nikora, Dylan Brown, Kieran Foran and Jeremy Marshall-King are just some of the players who missed last year’s Pacific Championships.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hughes remains sidelined for a second-straight year, but will likely replace the retiring Foran as halfback at next year’s World Cup.<\/p>\n
The absence of a host of stars forced Jones to hand debuts to seven players in 2024.<\/p>\n
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A bit of push and shove in Wigan<\/p>\n
While there were early growing pains, the coach said the Kiwis are now reaping the rewards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Last year I thought we made some good steps in the right direction because we debuted seven players,” Jones said. “This year we’ve only had to debut one player.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“That’s made our player pool a lot bigger and the experience they got from last year has helped get to the position we’re in this time. It’s a good feeling to be playing in the final.”<\/p>\n
The fruits of Jones’ efforts over the past two years have now come together in a perfect storm of success.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Kiwis edged Samoa 24-18 in the opening week of the tournament before dominating Tonga in front of more than 38,000 fans at Eden Park last weekend.<\/p>\n
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Kiwis v Toa Samoa – Round 1, 2025<\/p>\n
Samoa, for their part, claimed a commanding win over Tonga at Suncorp Stadium a fortnight ago to book their place in Sunday’s decider.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many of the players who missed last year’s campaign have been among the Kiwis best. Brown has produced two man of the match performances, while Leota and Nikora have been standouts in the forward pack.<\/p>\n
Foran has also starred in his farewell campaign as the halfback looks to retire with trophy in hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the other end of the spectrum, five of last year’s seven debutants have taken a big step forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Erin Clark, Phoenix Crossland, Keano Kini, Naufahu Whyte and Casey McLean have all developed into key figures both this year and for the future.<\/p>\n
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Phoenix Crossland Try<\/p>\n
“Last year was a learning curve for us,” Isaiah Papali’i said. “The losses burned us and we used that as fuel coming into this campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Having those debuts has helped us. Even having another year of experience through clubland has allowed those guys to grow so much and then getting a few of the older boys back in the squad also helped.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We’ve got a good blend at the moment and we’re looking forward to Sunday and finishing the year well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twelve months ago the Kiwis were staring down the barrel of relegation to the Pacific Bowl.\u00a0 Having staved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-267146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}