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Meninga makes right call by snubbing Edwards but Cleary must be Kangaroos halfback ahead of DCE

3rd October, 2022
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3rd October, 2022
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It’s a tough job being Kangaroos coach. Well, it isn’t really, because you’ve got literally the best pool of talent in the world to pick from and you could put them out in any order and they’d probably go alright.

But it is tough, in the sense that someone eventually has to lose and you really don’t want to be that bloke. Mal Meninga, whoever he picked, was going to get criticised and in all likelihood, he strengthens other teams through the choices that he makes as well.

Fiji just got a lot better by him not picking Api Koroisau and they face each other first up.

There were a few major selection headaches for Mal, and now the squad is picked, we can look over it and see what we think.

Leaving Dylan Edwards out was the right call

Sometimes the right call is not the popular one. Edwards is flavour of the month, and rightly so given his crucial role in the Panthers’ back-to-back Premierships and his superb performance in the Grand Final.

But seriously: does anyone think that he’s better than James Tedesco? I doubt many do, even in Penrith. Certainly Mal doesn’t, because he’s named Teddy to captain the whole team.

You might make an argument Edwards is better than Latrell Mitchell as a fullback, but given he only plays fullback, it doesn’t make sense to bring two of them along when your captain is a fullback, you have several others than can fill in and you only get 24 players.

Edwards is a reserve, so if someone went down he might get a chance, though it’s unlikely. It’s harsh on Edwards, who really couldn’t have done more, but that’s the world we live in. He’s behind Tedesco and unless he plays incredibly well for another five years, he still will be.

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He’s probably annoyed that he doesn’t have any ancestors from anywhere else to call upon, because if he was from literally anywhere else other than the Northern Rivers of NSW he would be playing rep footy, and indeed, if he’d been born at any point in the past prior to the scrapping of City/Country, he’d get a gig there too.

WOLLONGONG, AUSTRALIA - OCTOBER 25: (L-R) Jake Trbojevic of Australia, James Tedesco of Australia and Daly Cherry-Evans of Australia celebrate a try during the International Rugby League Test Match between the Australian Kangaroos and the New Zealand Kiwis at WIN Stadium on October 25, 2019 in Wollongong, Australia. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)

(Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)

Mal has to ditch incumbency and play Cleary

If it’s hard to think of much more than Edwards could have done, it’s even harder to think of what Nathan Cleary has to do to start at halfback in a Kangaroos jumper.

Yet, in the presser, Mal was still highly circumspect about who would play halfback. He dithered on the issue, suggesting that Daly Cherry-Evans might play at 6 – as if, somehow, things would get better if he dropped Cameron Munster – and then that he might rotate his team in preparation for the latter stages.

The whole idea is slightly disrespectful to the competition (quelle surprise, from the Australian Kangaroos, you might say) and yet also pointless, because while Mal might have a point that his lads will almost certainly play semis before they face a challenge, there is also nothing really to be learned for a game against New Zealand by testing someone against Italy and Scotland.

The spine is highly predicated on incumbency, but when you haven’t played a game for three years and you actually lost the last game you played, I’m not sure that works as an idea.

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DCE does play in concert with Ben Hunt and Harry Grant, the likely 9s, and Cam Munster, the likely 6, at Origin level, but I dunno: isn’t the point of Origin to pick a composite team? That’s certainly what Mal wanted us to believe when he was kvetching about eligibility.

Nathan Cleary is outright the best 7 in the world and that’s coming from a Manly fan who thinks the sun shines out of Cherry-Evans’ backside. He’s just a better player.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Have they picked Campbell Graham to play?

Josh Addo-Carr will start on one wing. Incumbency, and the lack of anyone else, helps. Murray Taulagi has also been picked and might well get the other wing. Val Holmes played there in 2017 and scored a million tries, so you’d think he’ll get some sort of run. But what about Campbell Graham?

My conspiracy theory is that Mal Meninga wanting to stop Scotland losing 100-4 rather than 100-0, and therefore called up the best player on their team. If he was doing that, I’ll grant you, he probably wouldn’t have released Fiji’s best player back to them, and might have called up Nathan Brown from Italy as well.

Joking aside, there is a part of me that thinks Graham isn’t there to for a curry at Yadgar’s and a pint of John Willie Lees in The Millstone next door. He’s going to Manchester to play.

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It’s surprising, really, because I interviewed him for our Rugby League World Cup podcast not two weeks back and he was totally committed to Scotland.

I’m surmising that Mal made the call late – perhaps after Selwyn Cobbo played the PMXIII’s game, where he trialled the Broncos youngster in the centres and then mentioned his need for utility value in the backs. Cobbo is absent, and the next cab off the centre/wing ranks is clearly Graham.

I have no idea if Meninga is the right guy to coach this Kangaroos team, but the decision-making there is confusing.

The wingers are vital to the way that the game is played, especially in grinding international matches at the highest level. It’s also Australia’s weakest position. Hmmm.

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