Australia v New Zealand: the return of the kings

SS He may well play, but if you offered me even money I would bet against it. He may be closer now after putting in a bad game last night and may feel he owes the team something, but he is very ify with injuries and any sign of any niggles and he wont be risked.

I feel the kiwis peaked to early whilst the kangaroos peaked at the right time. Not making excuses thought,this Australian team is really next level, they deserved to win

Thank you for sharing that with us and i have a massive hangover.

So disappointing from a NZ perspective, felt like I was watching the warriors play. Execution was absolutely horrible, line speed and ruck speed were well below par and game plan was schoolboy like. I do believe the scoreline is an incorrect measure of the difference in quality between the two nations. We desperately need to develop quality coaches instead of fast tracking ex-players into the role who know how create a "cuzzy bro" culture. Australia played with an intensity just below origin levels and where just so clinical. I still think Aus would have won if NZ matched aus with intensity but it would have been good to have a closer scoreline and a bit of pride.

Very interesting night - A few myths got busted last night when as the Yanks say" the rubber hit the road". It was no abberation Australia put twenty on a stronger Kiwi team than that mid season and have now won ten of the twelve meetings between the two sides since the loss in 2008 The biggest (and silliest) myth that kept floating around threads on this site was Australia had the weakest pack out of the so called big three with the Kiws the strongest - well I guess they got one out of three right? Australia have easily the best pack followed by England with the Kiwis the weakest.I said on another thread that as the game went on Australia got right on top of England at Cardiff and English got the better of The Kiwis in London and the formline remained consistent the OZ pack monstered New Zealand last night and really I doubt Pritchsrd would have made much difference, for a start he is not the most reliable commodity. Too much emphasis on club form and not enough weighting to SOO and test football against Australia - these are the two forums that sort out who the real champions are in our sport. As for the international game itself Australia just has too bigger advantage in raw playing numbers to expect the Kiwis or poms to be consistenty competitive - four out of every five games involving Australia are just plain boring and it is has been this way for almost forty years it is not going to change unless either interest in the game collapses in Australia or there is a freakish surge in the sports popularity in England and or New Zealand(and even then it would take a generation before it had any effect) I Ihink the time has come for QLD and NSW to compete as seperate Nations like England Scotland and Wales do in Football and Rugby with the Kangaroos saved for a once every four year appearence at the World cup. Australia have now won ten of their last twelve against the Kiwis and nine of their last ten against England - it is hard to keep selling the Australian public something as predictable as that.Just like happened with interstate football back in 1980 the international game at the elite level needs to accept radical change and embrace QLD and NSW competing seperately.

Your growing on me Raugeee

Cheers mate. The last 3 players to head into the dressing room tunnels were Smith, Slater and Cronk. Credit to all three - not only do they perform brilliantly on the field but they also go over and above off it.

Haha I know you're Billy's number one fan :) Thanks, will do.

Once the result was beyond doubt it became flat but magnificent ground to watch sport at and when the crowd did make noise it was incredibly loud.

Yeah 90% of the poms were cheering for the kiwis so us smacking them took away their voice. The neutrals couldn't really get into such a one sided game and a lot of the locals said that they were thrilled by the display of this great Aussie side but were disappointed that the game was so dominated by one side.

why would SBW not play in the ANZAC test? Does being the best forward ever make him exempt?

At the end of the day, i don't think any of the kiwis side can hold their head up high and say they showed up 100%. They were very poor and looked shaky from the start. That's not to take any credit from Australia though. They were immense and thoroughly deserved their convincing victory.

SBW, Jonah Lomu, Greg Inglis playing for the kiwis, none of it would have made a difference on there own. You need halves and go forward otherwise your stuffed, no matter how good your outside backs or power forwards are. Manu Vatuvei did Lomu's role, and SBW worked hard it makes no difference, if your props and halves are getting pushed backwards.

Flat track bully? If he didn't play in the Grand Final then Id still be recovering from celebrating a Manly victory. He turned the game for the Roosters. On a number of plays. The guy is all class. What he has achieved in one year back in the game is phenomenal. Of course there will always be haters, looking for any poor game to somehow justify their belief that he is not good. But it's funny how quiet those haters have been all year. Suggests to me he shut them up with his brilliant on-field performances.

Well, Cooper Cronk isn't saying that much in today's, Brisbane Sunday Mail ??? I'm happy to wait to hear it from Smith himself ... Slater is "tipping" Johnathan Thurston to win this year's Golden Boot ... Surely, he's a 'shoe in", over GI and SBW ...

Great post Renegade. Good to see the Melbournians doing their country proud. Hope you enjoyed a huge night out on the town.

I know mate,i was just trying to make a comparison/point.

Trooper/Muzz Cam is GOOOONE has has been for a whle. See story http://www.theroar.com.au/2013/10/14/review-detailsis-the-cameron-smith-broncos-deal-a-coup-or-crazy/ There will be no counter offer from the Storm simply because there is no point. It is number in the frame. Be some team with Cam Smith, Ben Barba, Anthony Milford and maybe Karmichael Hunt all coached by Wayne Bennett.

I'm not sure how correct my stats (nrlstats.com.au) are coz they're got Kasiano at 80m and 25 tackles. Not much difference though. Big Sam IMO was too slow. Matulino was their best 'go forward' player. You know there are problems when your bench props outplay the starting ones. They even had more minutes on the field...weird.

Ima What are you trying to say because I have no idea? Talk simple plain English. Tim Sheens was superb and should be resigned TODAY! He made the correct call to play Hayne at left center and had his team playing a prefect structure. He also dropped Nat Myles which was also correct. I would have played DCE but Cronk was superb and he showed the Kiwis what tactical kicking is.