Steve McNamara has expressed his pride at England's defensive effort against New Zealand, despite seeing his side fall to defeat at the Olympic Stadium.
The Kiwis came out on top 9-2 in a physical contest on Saturday afternoon to level up the three-match series.
McNarama was particularly pleased by the way England kept New Zealand at bay for large parts, with the visitors crossing over just once thanks to Shaun Kenny-Dowall, but the head coach admits that more needs to be done ahead of next week's decider.
"We played half well in defence, but in the attacking half struggled to gain momentum," BBC Sport quotes the 44-year-old as saying. "The result was disappointing but there is not much between the two teams.
"I'm hugely proud of the way we defended for huge parts of the game and restricted New Zealand to one try. But the problem was we had too much of it to do.
"Some of the errors we made were really basic and we put pressure on ourselves. We came here to really go for this game. That was the plan, not sit and make it happen, but the other team were pretty good as well."
The final match in the series will take place at Wigan's DW Stadium next Saturday.
Daniel Lewis
