ANZAC Test shows need for fresh thinking

While the myth of Kangaroo invincibility has been convincingly debunked by recent tournament victories from the world champion Kiwis, aspects of international rugby league remain as predictable as ever.

One: at the end of a long series and in a big game, the Kiwis will put on a good show. Two: at any stage of any series, England will produce a succession of laughable handling and defensive errors which completely undo all the good work done to that point. And three: a flat Kiwis outfit will inevitably go down to Australia in a flat mid-season Test.

Admittedly, the flavour of New Zealand’s ANZAC-clash losses to Australia has evolved over the years. Where once the floggings were routine and abject, smarter football from a more mature New Zealand side now lends the tinge of competitiveness to the fixture, with more taciturn Kiwi defense and a consolation try or two helping to narrow the gap on the scoreboard, if not on the win-loss tally.

Friday night’s fixture at Robina was no exception, with an unconvincingly Kangaroos outfit easing their way to a 20 – 10 victory, following a tighter 12–8 win in 2010. Last year’s stop-start clash at least had the excuse of a torrential downpour in Melbourne. Clearer skies on the Gold Coast in 2011 nevertheless saw a similarly awkward pattern of play, with an error-riddled performance from both sides suggesting that the clunkiness of the fixture has more to do with the short preparation time afforded to both teams than the conditions they face on the night.

Australia, even the Slater-Lockyer-Thurston-Smith spine, struggled for rhythm with ball in hand. Only one of their tries resulted from a well-constructed backline shift, with three others gifted by Kiwi errors and broken play.

With the best and most experienced playmaking combination in the business finding the going tough, it was no wonder that the Kiwi halves pairing of Benji Marshall and Keiran Foran couldn’t construct the plays needed to break down their green and gold opponents. It took until the 80th minute for the talented Kiwi halves to link convincingly. And when they finally did, a scything run from Foran, followed by a kick to support inside, produced the best try of the game.

Adding to the playmaking mess for New Zealand, Souths hooker Isaac Luke – out of form at club level this year but still clearly the Kiwis most damaging number nine – entered the fray too late to make a meaningful impact on the match.

Two moments in the game told the story for New Zealand in attack. Early in the second half, with Marshall calling for the ball and deep backline set to the right on the last play, Kiwi hooker Nathan Fien – preferred to Luke as the starting rake – inexplicably donked a grubber over the line to no-one from dummy half.

On a subsequent set of six on the Australian line, with New Zealand again set deep to the right for a big shift move on the last tackle, Lance Hohaia fumbled at first receiver, killing the play.

On either occasion, some Marshall magic on the right edge – where the Wests Tigers’ pivot produced three telling Kiwi tries in their Four Nations final victory last year – would have had the Kiwis tied up or in front with plenty of time on the clock. As it was, Hohaia’s mistake sparked an England-esque run of dropped ball from the Kiwis – five on the trot – which saw them go to 14 points down in the blink of an eye. Thank you linesman, thank you ball boys, see you for more of the same next year.

Despite another entry in the loss column, it wasn’t all bad for New Zealand. Marshall and Foran, despite being posted for the most part on opposite edges, showed glimpses of being a powerful playmaking force, with Foran’s boot used to good effect to compensate for Marshall’s inconsistent kicking game. Debutant Lewis Brown looked right at home at Test level, while fellow youngster Ben Matulino barnstormed his way to his best performance in a Kiwi jersey to be the pick of the props on the night. With promising youngsters Gerard Beale, Josh Hoffman and Glen Fisiiahi waiting in the wings, Lance Hohaia’s long career in the white V could be over after another mixed performance.

While a young Kiwi side will continue to press the Kangaroos, all the young talent in the world won’t produce consistent performances from New Zealand on a Sunday-to-Friday turnaround – particularly against an Australian team dominated by the all-conquering Queensland Origin side. And so, predictably, the second phase of the annual Anzac Test rigmarole will roll around – debate over the merits and the timing of the trans-Tasman fixture.

Should the game still be played before Origin? After Origin? Not at all?

For all the hand wringing, there’s an obvious answer to the scheduling dilemma – a three-week mid-season window for representative matches.

With the NRL taking a break, 25-man Origin squads could do the business for New South Wales and Queensland over three consecutive weekends. This would free the Kiwi players up for three games against Pacific Island teams or, heaven forbid, an incoming Great Britain side.

Throw in a Pacific Cup or an Under 20’s Test or Origin series and you have enough content to placate the fractious Fox Sports executives who worship Super Saturday above all other gods, and to reassure the NRL honchos fearful of ceding entire weekends to their club-football based domestic competitors.

Sure, we’d lose the annual Australia-New Zealand mid-year fixture. But this sort of representative calendar would give the Kiwis a chance to develop some genuine combinations, as their Aussie equivalents do at Origin team each year. It would have the added bonus of ending the deluge of representative absentees which denudes and devalues NRL club football during the Origin series.

At the very least, unlike Friday’s run of the mill mid-season Test, it would provide something we haven’t all seen before.