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ROCHDALE – You might have noticed a little bit of chat about team selection in the Kangaroos camp. If you haven’t, congratulations.
With a quarter final on the horizon, Mal Meninga has promised to pick his best team – and presuming that nothing major happens in the next 24 hours regarding Reagan Campbell-Gillard’s corked leg and Isaah Yeo’s crusher tackle report, he has all 24 on deck and available to him.
The Kangaroos coaches might want to watch one more training session, set for Salford on Tuesday morning UK time, but coach Wood has seen all he needs to see. Here’s your Kangaroos 17 to face Lebanon in Huddersfield.
Look, let’s get the easy bits out of the way first. Teddy is the captain, fullback and one of the few definitely going to play. If you are one of the people on the internet saying anyone else should have the 1 jumper, feel free to give yourself a triple.
Every moment the Foxx plays at this tournament makes Brad Fittler’s decision not to pick him for New South Wales look even more bizarre. He’s been close to the best player in the whole World Cup.
Latrell has excelled as a centre for the Kangaroos and is only going to get better. A walk-up.
Val has been great, and must start. Furthermore, I’d have him kicking the goals too, but that’s just me. In my heart of hearts, I think that Holmes might be better in this team as a winger, with Latrell moved to the other side and Matt Burton brought in to partner Addo-Carr, such is their combination at club level and the obvious advantages that Burto brings with the boot. But seen as Holmes has only played in the centres so far, I doubt that will happen, so in the centres he stays.
(Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
What do you value if you’re Mal Meninga? The games you just saw, or the season’s worth of games in the NRL and at Origin level prior? Let’s assume that Mal favours recency, because if he didn’t, he would have gone on so much about rotation and opportunities.
On the evidence of the last three weeks, he has to pick Campbell Graham. Murray Taulagi has the club connection with Holmes inside him, but Graham has done everything and more to deserve selection. Taulagi hasn’t been bad, but Graham has been better. If Mal is true to his word on form, Graham plays. For the record, I think he’ll pick Taulagi anyway.
Another easy one – the best five eighth in the world has to play five eighth. We move on.
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OK, the biggie. Well, it’s not really: Nathan is a better player than Daly Cherry-Evans in 2022, has impressed when given the chance and deserves his go. DCE has been fine, even good, but if Australia are serious then they pick Nathan.
I’m not sure that I believe the line on letting them both have equal opportunity, because it is predicated on the idea that you’d find something out about Nathan Cleary by playing against Scotland and Italy. You won’t, and we didn’t. Similarly, we didn’t learn anything about DCE either.
Given that, we then cycle back. Nathan was undoubtedly better in the NRL, DCE was undoubtedly better in Origin. If you value Origin more, and I think Mal does, then DCE is the pick. I don’t however: I simply think Cleary is a better player and you pick your best guy.
For what it’s worth: I actively want Australia to lose and, to that end, I hope Mal goes for DCE. I’m sure Michael Cheika, Michael Maguire, Shaun Wane, Matt Parish and Kristian Woolf agree with me.
(Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Front row is a tougher pick that you might have thought. Lindsay Collins is only a tourist and shouldn’t be near the squad on form, but the big guy depth is not great. I wouldn’t have selected Jurbo in the squad either, because he’s not really a prop anymore and more of a soft sponge tackling machine than a line-bender, but given that he’s in, he has to start.
Jake isn’t really an impact guy, so if he plays at all it’s from the start, and he does play long enough minutes and make enough tackles that it allows a rotation of bigger, more threatening forwards. Imagine if one of them was Matt Lodge (not politically, of course, but on playing form), David Klemmer or Payne Haas. It’s my long-held opinion that, if Australia lose, this is where they will lose it.
Another easy one, his rotation with Harry Grant is great and Hunt provides halves depth to boot. Nothing to see here.
Tino has to play as a big man in this side because of the lack of options elsewhere. If you play Jake, it means Tino have to take the slack early on and play enforcer. The upshot is that he can play shorter, more impactful minutes with Trbojevic taking up the slack elsewhere.
There’s a lot of back row options and all have been decent. Me, I think Gus is impossible to leave out. He’s simply more consistent and effective in covering an edge defensively. I would hear an argument that Jeremiah Nanai offers you more in attack, but I’m not sure that’s what you need in this side.
I don’t see Australia struggling to score points, but I can see their defence being an issue. It hasn’t really been tested yet – only four tries conceded and all off kicks – but when the opposition gets better, they’ll need to have their best on deck. Crichton holds that up better than Nanai for me, though I fully expect Mal to pick the Cowboys man.
Murray is a strange pick. It’s obvious that he will play, and that he must play, but there’s a deep feeling somewhere inside me that he’s wasted on an edge.
The best stuff he does for Souths is with the ball as a playmaker, which he will get zero opportunity to do in this side. His play the ball speed, arguably the fastest in the NRL, is also underutilised further away from the middle.
These are just my musings on it: Murray is in and he’s in on an edge.
Yeo has been the form lock of the competition domestically and has a great combination with Cleary. If you pick one, you should probably pick the other.
I rate Murray massively as a ball-playing lock and I don’t think you’d lose anything if he was in the 13, but given the Souths man’s ability to shift to edge and even into the middle at a push, I’d take Yeo in his best position.
(Photo by Naomi Baker/Getty Images)
See Ben Hunt: these two work so well together at every level.
As mentioned under Jurbo, the lack of impact forwards is a problem for Australia. RCG would ideally start, but given the lack of other big men, using Jake to soak early impacts and then chucking Reggie in is a better idea than the other way around. Unless you go a full power game and play Collins and RCG, that’s really the only way this rotation can work.
Carrigan is in this side as a middle forward, though I’m far from sold that this is his best position. He’ll rotate with Tino and Jurbo, because he has to be in the team and, as he always does, will do a great job.
The unlucky character here is Reuben Cotter. He’s done nothing wrong and would rightly feel aggrieved not to be playing, but a middle rotation that includes him, Carrigan and Jurbo is too small so one has to drop out to allow other guys to add that size.
The final bench spot is a tough one. There’s a strong argument that Cotter might be used here, but if he does, that adds one extra to the middle and takes away one from the edge. Given that Murray can also play there, it doesn’t make sense to carry and extra.
Instead, it’s a straight shootout between Martin and Nanai. As mentioned above, I think Mal will pick Nanai, but I would go for Martin. That’s for three reasons: firstly, I think he’s done more with the opportunities available to him at this tournament; secondly, I think he’s a more reliable all-rounder on both sides of the ball and thirdly, I think he’s got a bit of dog in him that the younger Cowboy is yet to display.
It’s an underrated quality, but one that both England and New Zealand have in spades. I don’t know how many collective games missed through bans are in this Aussie pack, but the overwhelming feeling is that they’re incredibly nice boys.
If Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Joe Tapine and Nelson Asofa-Solomona – or Luke Thompson, John Bateman and Tom Burgess – are your opponents, then that sort of game is likely to come your way. Certainly, if I were coach of the Kiwis or England, I’d be telling them to bully this pack to the best of their ability. Martin trumps Nanai in that regard.