The Kiwis recovered from a sluggish start, which saw the Kangaroos up 10-0 after just 15 minutes, to trail by six points with three minutes to go in front of 21,009 fans at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry on Sunday morning (AEDT).
With a few seconds left Shaun Johnson looked to have scored a try which would have set New Zealand up with the opportunity to escape the game with a draw, but inspection from the video referee found he had been held up by some desperate Kangaroos cover defence.
Post-match Kidwell didn't see that as the defining moment of the contest though, and believed New Zealand probably cost themselves a chance earlier with an inability to build pressure.
"Test match football is about taking your opportunities and I thought at times we didn't," Kidwell said.
"Towards the end there we started to play some of the football that we know we can play, we just have to make sure that we take our opportunities both in attack and defence.
"Some of our first-up contact at times, I think we just let them off the hook a couple of times.
"There is [a couple of missed opportunities which stand out], with letting them out of their half a couple of times."
