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Hobart - Captain Ross Taylor on Thursday called on his New Zealand team to play more disciplined cricket and show extra fight in Friday's second Test against Australia in Hobart.
The Kiwis were humiliated on the fourth day of the first Gabba Test on Sunday, routed for 150 and setting the Australians just 19 runs for a nine-wicket victory.
Taylor, who castigated himself for his poor scores of 14 and a first-ball duck, said it was a tough loss to take for the eighth-ranked Black Caps.
"I think we're trying to keep as upbeat as possible. We're very disappointed in the performance that we put in and everyone's hurting and we're disappointed for the fans back home," Taylor said.
"As a unit the bowlers bowled well in patches. We've just got to be a bit more consistent and as a batting unit we just have to try to leave outside the offstump and let them bowl at us.
"A lot of the deliveries the Australians did bowl weren't even hitting the stumps when they got us out, so, me included, we've just got to play a lot tighter than we did in Brisbane."
New Zealand will again start as underdogs against Michael Clarke's Australians, with the Black Caps chasing their first win across the Tasman since 1985.
"Any time we play Australia it's going to be tough and just the fact that we talk a lot about fighting and we just didn't show enough fight as we would have liked, that was probably the most disappointing thing about the loss," he said.
"Any loss is disappointing, but that one just hit home a bit harder than other losses we've had."
Taylor said he and the other top order Kiwi batsmen had to get established early in their innings.
"As any captain you want to lead from the front and I'm no different," he said.
"I made a poor shot just before lunch in the first innings and made a nervous poke in the second innings.
"It's just disappointing to get out in those ways, but you've got to put those things to the side and you just have to go out there, front up and get through the first 20 to 30 balls and hopefully it will get a lot easier from there."
Taylor backtracked on his post-Gabba comments about Australian opener Phillip Hughes when he had said he would "love him" to stay in the team for the Hobart Test.
Taylor had identified Hughes's weakness outside offstump, leading to dismissals in the slips and gully, but on Thursday he talked up the Australian opener.
"I made a tongue-in-cheek comment that was probably made a bit more about than it should have been," he said.
"He's a world-class opener, he's got three hundreds for Australia and he's scored runs against us in the past and he scored more runs than I did in the last game, so I think he'll be fine."
Taylor said he anticipated picking the same squad of 12 players from the Gabba for the second Test.
