Great Britain star Zak Hardaker is expecting both his Lions side and New Zealand to bounce back from defeats at the weekend.
Hardaker played in the centres for Great Britain who lost to a Tongan Invitational side 14-6 while the Kiwis are coming off the back of a defeat to Australia and the Wigan fullback knows there is plenty of improvement in both teams.
“I think we both went similar ways,” Hardaker said of the sides’ defeats last week.
“Both kicking games were poor and the sets leading up to it weren’t great. Hopefully both teams go away and learn from the losses and fix things up and that’ll make it really exciting for the weekend. There’s things we can fix up and I’m sure they’ll do the same.”
Meanwhile, Hardaker was happy to be back in the international fold. The former Leeds star hasn’t played an international since 2017 and was pleased to be singing the national anthem once again on his Britain debut.
“I fully enjoyed it,” continued Hardaker.
“Singing the national anthem, I was feeling a bit jittery inside. It was a really good feeling, I was trying to think of my mum, step dad and girlfriend back home.
“It touched a little bit of a nerve when I sung the national anthem It’s great being back in the set up and the first game albeit a loss.”
