The Football Ferns have bounced back from their humbling loss against the US to pick up a win against world No.26 Mexico this morning.
After the 5-0 blowout against in St Louis last Friday, the team has rallied for a 2-1 win in New York this morning.
The Ferns produced a dominant performance in the behind-closed-doors friendly, earning a 2-0 lead at halftime after Rosie White and Sarah Gregorius scored within eight minutes of each other.
White was first when she converted a penalty for a hand ball in the 24th minute before Gregorius converted on a counterattack after she turned the ball over and finished the play herself.
The Kiwis had more chances in the second half to put the game to bed but couldn't finish, leading to a tense finish when Mexican midfielder Lizbeth Ovalle scored in the 81st minute.
Chris Chang and the panel on the Football Ferns World Cup buildup, and the future for troubled Welsh superstar Gareth Bale who is out of favour with real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane.
But the team held on and Coach Tom Sermanni deemed it a "good result".
"We were 2-0 up at half-time and really looking quite comfortable - over the course of the 90 minutes we hit the crossbar three times and the post once - it was probably the most chances we have created in a game this year against some better opposition so that was pleasing," he said.
"We got a little bit ragged at times and allowed Mexico to come back into the game with a late goal but those are things that are probably good to happen now, to judge the reaction of being in front and make sure we don't give those goals away."
Sermanni said he was impressed with how the team bounced back after last Friday's loss.
"It was a great show of character [today] and it also helped that we had at least four good training games between those two games and the players had settled in much better.
"Training has been much more dynamic than it was leading into the USA game. There is still some ways to go and things to improve on, but there were a lot of promising things from the game today."
The Football Ferns have two more warm-up matches against England and Wales before they begin their World Cup campaign.
The Kiwi side will face World No.4 Canada, World No.8 and World No.46 Cameroon in Group E at the World Cup in France.
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