New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming could be excused for wishing he was held up at customs a little longer before arriving at the SCG.

The renowned skipper flew in from the Shaky Isles on Saturday where he has been recovering from a mystery illness, but the performance of the Black Caps against NSW would not have lifted his spirits.

Legspinner Stuart MacGill (4-52) again dazzled the visitors on a turning track as they lost 7-18 in a dramatic collapse late on day three to set the home team up for a crushing win.

Chasing 129 runs for victory, the Blues resume on Sunday 0-25 in their second innings with openers Phil Jaques (16no) and Greg Mail (9no) at the crease.

Acting NZ captain Scott Styris managed to put a positive spin on his team's inept performance after their arrival from a successful tour of Bangladesh.

"Apart from the last session and forty minutes in their first innings, we have done well in this match so far," he said.

Styris said the match was invaluable preparation for next week's opening Test in Brisbane.

"We said at the start that the result was never that important, it was about preparing ourselves for next week and preparing ourselves for bounce bowlers again."

The tourists started so positively with allrounder Jacob Oram knocking back the stumps of Brett Lee and MacGill with consecutive balls as the Blues added just eight runs to their Friday night total.

NZ openers Mathew Sinclair (79) and Mark Richardson put on 110 for the opening wicket before Richardson was bowled trying to hit MacGill over midwicket.

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