Newcomer to take charge of second test

Ruth Aitken had to bite her tongue when asked about the neutral umpires for tonight's second test against Australia.

Trinidad and Tobago whistleblower Joel Young-Strong will control the game alongside South African Annie Kloppers.

Kloppers umpired the first test in Adelaide but Young-Strong will be chucked in the deep end at Wellington's TSB Bank Arena.

"She never even saw the game," Silver Ferns coach Aitken said. "That's just the way it is so we just have to control the controllables and get on with it."

The umpires attended both New Zealand's and Australia's training sessions yesterday in a bid to open up the lines of communication.

Aitken said that was normal practice and "it has to happen".

"Otherwise we don't have any experience of them, they've all been in different parts of the world and it's quite random."

New Zealand's attackers were pulled up by the umpires several times in Adelaide, with Temepara George the chief culprit.

Aitken said discussions yesterday left her confident that both players and officials would be on the same page tonight.

"We just have to make sure that we're really tidy in our skills and our basics so that we don't bring the umpire into play. We all know that the intensity of the game makes things happen differently, both from our point of view and from their point of view.

"But we have to keep building those relationships and I think the more ... we can talk about things, the better."

- © Fairfax NZ News

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