Papua New Guinea made the Kiwi Ferns work, before they eased clear 40-12 on a soggy Gold Coast and make it three wins from three Rugby League World Cup pool games.
New Zealand will be top qualifiers from Group B for next weekend’s semi-finals, where they face Samoa in Newcastle.
While the Ferns romped to a 92-0 win over France in Christchurch last week, their two other matches have been decent contests, including their opening 18-12 defeat of group runners-up Fiji, who will face Australia in the other semi.
PNG were particularly difficult to break down in the first half, with a try to Kaiyah Atai on the stroke of the interval inching New Zealand to a 14-12 advantage.
Play opened up in the second half, with the Kiwis adding five more tries to their overall tally of eight, while keeping their tiring opponents scoreless.
They started the second spell on the best possible note, when front-rower Otesa Pule scored a runaway 70m solo try almost from the restart.
Backs Mackenzie Wiki and the impressive Abigail Roache both completed doubles after the break, as their team unearthed greater cohesion and reduced the error count.
Duel international Stacey Waaka and Wiki bagged tries early in the match, but both were cancelled out by PNG, who responded with converted tries to Tia Molo and Elsie Albert.
Captain and halfback Raecene McGregor said her team would need to be better in the knockout phase.
“Obviously, I’m proud that we were really resilient and got through it in the end,” she told Sky Sport.
“There were a couple of errors in that first half and even in the second half – we need to be better, especially coming into the semis.”
