Gripping contest just what Test footy needed

And another thing. Complaining about your national team as being too successful, and giving that as an excuse for not supporting international Rugby League, is both pitiful and bizarre. The New Zealand Rugby Union side is just as dominant without generating any negatives whatsoever. I don't hear any New Zealanders complaining about unremitting success.

A fantastic Rugby League Test Match, as was Fiji versus Samoa. No one seems to have brought up the matter of neutral referees. It's an absolute disgrace that an Australian was in charge of the Australia versus New Zealand Rugby League Test Match. This wouldn't be tolerated in Football or Rugby Union. The linesmen should also be neutral. As should the video judges.

after 10 minutes of the test, I saw the writing on the wall, kiwis' on fire Roos' asleep. Waited till 10 minutes after half time to see if the kick in the butt from Sheens hurt, it did, but not alot. Still a bit ho hum, no fire in the middle. Have the Roos' just given up on the middle. Bromich wow, and when JWH and Matulino and Moa, mannering etc are together again, yeah I might give up on the middle too!

I cant say that Australia ever hit top gear, I think there wasn't much the kiwis could do and the outcome was a foregone conclusion. At $7.80 in a 2 team game the writing was on the wall and the outcome pretty much known. I really wonder where the future is for these 1 off tests, the crowd was a lot smaller than I thought for a Friday night.

Surprises me that no-one comments on an obvious anomaly,or 2? Having "Origin" precede Internationals would give the "Kangaroos" an advantage. N.Z. NEEDS ITS OWN "ORIGIN'---A 2nd NRL FRANCHISE IN NZ-----Equal match payments for all rep games ,upto what is paid to both NSW & QUEENSLAND players. Wake up NRL-- International games have a longer shelf life than fixtures between 2 Aust. states.

I agree with you but that comes down to experience and leadership, both of which NZ lacked big time on Friday night. Mannering is a great footballer who gives 110% but is not a leader. Johnson is a super talent but lacks experience, with time he will be one of the best. These are the 2 that should have been making the calls on the field but it was left up to the less experience to do so. IMO the missing link for NZ was Foran decisive and level headed, he knows what to do and when to do it. Foran should be NZ captain and Luke v/c these two were missing and whould have made a huge difference, maybe even 12 points. The Aussies exposed Nightingale when he got hurt and ran round him, should have taken him off and moved Beale to wing and Henry to centre. It was an excellent game but Kearney has to come the 4N decide who stays and who comes in. Based on the Test NZ has unearthed some interesting players who knew that Harris had such good ball skills ala SBW, Hiku very safe, Havili was very good and Henry was excellent and proved what a talent that he is. Adam Blair played the best game I've seen from him in a couple of years. JWH would have to become an absolute world beater to get his place back. All I can say is bring on the 4N should be very good. Don't care about SOO its over rated and the only Kiwi's that play in it are mercenaries doing it for money only.

Also before people come up with the line that QLD have dominated origin for eight years (the last two years they have fallen over the line by a bees dick hardly dominated) Australia have dominated test football for forty years.IF QLD dominate the next thirty years winning 80% of the games then no doubt origin will go the way of test football but do you really think that will happen?

Also before people come up with the line that

Scott - I will be suprised if Australia are that short post season punters will remember this relatively close result and also the fact that Australia tend to ne more vulnerable post season, If you examine the last thirty years the results decade to decade are quite consistent...t Australia lose about one game in six against both GB and New Zealand so that gives you an idea of what kind of price you need to bet against them (with a very small percentage of your bank we are talking big time speccie here like buying 2 cent mining shares with no inside info)

Pete - That was a big mistake not taking that kick....going ahead by more than a converted try might just have played with the Australians heads a bit and led to some errors. With the game getting serious assuming you can break the Australian goal line defence is a bad bet when you have two points and scoreboard pressure there for the taking. To beat Australia you need them to be well off their game(and they were not Australia played ok) or you need to play almost perfectly and New Zealand lost their way in the second half with poor finishes to their sets and a few errors.

The problem is it was not really gripping because we have all seen the film so many times before. Australia get on top in the last half hour and do what they need to do to win. Watching test football is like watching a Hollywood action film or Pro Wrestling... no matter how much punishment the star of the show takes you know he will rise from the canvas and end up with the belt around his waist nine tomes out of ten. Just like wrestling you also know that after the odd loss here or there he will come out rampaging when the rematch comes around.That gentle reader is why tickets for Test matches are not at a premium like origin tickets are. What the international game badly needs is for Australia to be regularly beaten for a few years but if you are waiting for that you might as well be waiting for godot.

I'm a fan of a shorter premiership season where teams play each other only once which then builds up to more and more important goals. The goal of a club should be to win the premiership. The goal of the sport should be internationals. I think Origin is a fair enough middle man between the two and I do envision a time when the clubs of the Super League and the NRL open up the international sphere with a revitalised World Club Challenge. I think that in some way, all four competitions - premiership, World Club Challenge, Origin and Tests - should be working together to tap into international money and possibilities. That's how I see it.

Just to clarify on the reasons against a 4N. I think it's ultimately a counterproductive system to have a developing side in with the big boys, particularly given there's only one of them. Ostensibly, the reason you have developing nations in a big time international comp is to give them exposure to the big stage and raise awareness in their homeland. But having a weak team cop wall-to-wall beatings for a month does nothing for development; in fact it's downright counterproductive and more likely to hurt growth in my view. The world cup is the place for that sort of thing, because whilst they may cop a beating at the hands of the top 3, they still get good games against similarly skilled opponents. That's why they should return to a straight TN tournament and then put in a lower tier one to run concurrent to it made up of teams like the PI nations, France and the other UK nations.

It just makes sense doesn't it. The main counter-argument appears to be concerns over player fatigue and the warmer weather. But they're non-issues in reality, as if you started the season a week earlier, got rid of rep week and shortened the round-robin stage to 24 rounds, then the NRL would finish in the first week of September. that would mean Origin would be done by the second week of October and the Tri Nations would be over by November, with the final two games to be played in an English winter. As I say in my bit the other day, I also seriously think the Tri Nations should be a straight home and away league like the old union one. It makes more sense that way and would guarantee home test footy each year. You start the Tri Nations with England v NZ in NZ on the last week of Origin, then you take a two week break and have Australia play England in Aus, followed by Aus v NZ in NZ, then both NZ and Aus fly to England.

I've written about this before. I agree completely with the idea of progression. The NRL should lead into Origin which should lead into an international series, with each stage of the season building up to the next. Context is the important point, along with consistency.

Historically, Sydney averages 28,000 for this Test. Brisbane averages 43,000 and New Zealand averages around 30,000. After the non-stop death riding of this match, a couple of thousand off the historical average is not a bad result. Like I mentioned earlier, it seems that the only thing holding back international rugby league is the Australian rugby league fan.

I'm a NZ union fan who really enjoyed the game, and I watched the game hoping the young lads wouldn't concede a cricket score. I think the Kiwi forwards did really well, but there was just too much class out wide for Australia and some of the NZ defensive lines in the backs were very poor - conceding soft tries from a couple of miss passes from scrums was a real concern. I also never really thought the Kiwis were going to win. In hindsight they should have taken an easy penalty from in front when up 18-12. A 20-12 lead would have put a lot more pressure on Australia and perhaps led to some doubt. I want to know why so few of these ANZAC tests have been played in New Zealand. There have been 15 ANZAC (April-May) tests and the Kangaroos have shown their clear dominance by winning 14 of them. The other dominant statistic is that 13 of the 15 games have been held in Australia, with the two NZ games both in Auckland (1998, 2012) - thanks Wikipedia. Why don't they play a few more games in NZ, and away from Auckland (where fans get to watch NRL anyway)? While I doubt it would've changed the result, I reckon the game should've been played in either Welllington or Dunedin as the Hurricanes and Highlanders were away in Super Rugby. They would have still got a crowd of 25,000 but grown the game a bit in other parts of the country, or provided something for league fans who rarely get a chance to see NRL stars.