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ROCHDALE – It’s two days since Australia qualified for the Rugby League World Cup Final and it already feels like a million years ago. It could be that the second semi between England v Samoa took years off me, or that so much happened on Friday night (UK time) that it’ll take weeks to digest.
The Kangaroos fought the Kiwis into the ground, and while the result could have gone a different way, it was hard to argue against an Australian win. The demeanour of Jesse Bromwich and Michael Maguire in the post-match presser told the whole story, because the Kiwis knew the opportunity was there and didn’t take it.
The manner of the defeat, where they blinked once in 80 minutes and were punished by Cam Murray’s try, will be hard to take. A penny for the thoughts of Nelson Asofa-Solomona, who decided to make the first legs tackle of his life on his own line late on in a World Cup semi-final.
It’s hard to call anyone who played in that game a flop, however, but we don’t shirk tasks: here’s the tops and flops.
The first top is just the game in general, which showed just how good international footy is and can be when the best players play it. Australia v New Zealand delivered massively.
You sit through weeks of ‘grow the game’ stories that eventuate, largely, into one-sided fixtures (about which I have no problems, incidentally), so that you get a weekend where these kind of clashes happen.
Now we’ve had Kiwis against Fiji and Australia and Samoa against Tonga and England, four great games in a row in the men’s tournament. You can throw in the Jillaroos v Kiwi Ferns, too, and I’ll go out on a limb in support of England v the Ferns tomorrow before it’s even happened.
On the Kangaroos specifically, I’m not sure if this is a mea culpa or a #mikestradamus moment. The game went, essentially, exactly the way that I thought it would, the Kiwis did exactly what they should have done and the Kangaroos won anyway because they’re really, really good. That’s the bit I expected.
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The bit I didn’t was all down to Mal Meninga. I thought he would pick the wrong team and allow New Zealand to play their game. He picked the right team, Michael Maguire got his boys to play near-perfectly and then they lost.
I have criticised Mal for playing without any coherent plan and just allowing his best players to run the show. When you have these players, then that works. I’m not sure that it’s even a criticism anymore because it so patently works.
The main question marks over this Kangaroos side were about organisation and commitment.
Organisation, defensively at least, is a product of commitment at rep level, because the other side rarely has the ability to pick your line apart tactically and thus the standard rugby league truisms of turning up for each other, scrambling, bodies on the line etc come to the fore.
That aspect matters more than the inside/outside shoulder, stick and slide, As & Bs stuff than can override effort in club footy.
I questioned the Kangaroos’ commitment simply because they hadn’t been asked to show it and you never know until you see it. The Kiwis had been asked into deep water twice – of their own making, mind – against Lebanon and Fiji, and had come up with answers.
Australia had not. Now they have and we can all see it. I shouldn’t have doubted champions like Cam Murray, Val Holmes and James Tedesco. They were never not going to show up.
(Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images for RLWC)
I’m a great believer in the Wayne Bennett adage that if you take advice from the fans, you’ll end up sitting with them. But regular readers will know that I love a trawl through the comments section, and jeez: Roarers did not enjoy the performance of Latrell Mitchell.
I had to reassess my own view on his output. I barely noticed anything Latrell did in the game, and checking my notes and the stats, that’s because he didn’t really do much at all.
We went into the game high on the Kangaroos’ left edge, but it would be hard to say that it fired in any meaningful way. Josh Addo-Carr scored, but that was bomb that fell to earth rather than a superb piece of constructed play.
Beyond that, the Kiwis made the game what they wanted it to be and negated their talent disadvantage in the outside backs. Like Queensland did in Origin, they flew up on Isaah Yeo and removed his passing lanes, especially towards Latrell’s edge.
The Kangaroos consistently failed to get him good ball, the Kiwis defended him well and that was about it. At fullback he could probably have bobbed around and got himself involved, but from the centre, that’s not as easily done.
If Australia wanted a guy who played in the centres, ran hard and made a million tackles, they’d pick Campbell Graham, just like Souths do.
Instead, they have gone for a magician who can single-handedly change the game to his whim and do something that nobody else can. That’s why Latrell is there. If he got man of the match in the World Cup Final, it would surprise absolutely nobody.
Even on his best days, he’s not a volume player and, realistically, shouldn’t be. Tom Trbojevic, for example, is a volume player and a moments player, and clearly it doesn’t work long-term.
Every other team in the world would kill to have a Latrell Mitchell they could stand out in the centres in the hope that he’d do two good things a game, because that’ll likely be enough to win.
Friday wasn’t his best night, and maybe he could have wandered and got himself involved a bit more, but mostly it was a case of the game happening elsewhere and Mitchell not getting opportunities.
(Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Australia’s backrow was the biggest actual conundrum going into the tournament – no, not halfback – and they’ve more than solved it.
It helps when you have Angus Crichton, the best defensive edge, and Cam Murray, just one of the best forwards in the world period, and Liam Martin, who provided that bit of dog that I thought Australia might be missing.
The defensive work from Crichton and Martin was probably the difference in the game, with the Kiwis never really able to construct play along the seams and forced to spread to Ronaldo Mulitalo’s wing to get joy.
They did get some success that way, but it was always likely to be a higher-risk strategy than bombing to Isaiah Papali’i or Nelson Asofa-Solomona closer in from the sideline. Jahrome Hughes was blunted, too, and that comes down to the diligence of the edge defenders.
Isaah Yeo was himself blunted by the Kiwis defence but proved that he is as good a regular lock as he is a ball-playing lock and was happy to take the hard yards when they were needed and pass when he could.
New Zealand’s defence were excellent and fought Australia to a standstill, but it wasn’t enough to get them the win. Murray’s try showed why he was perfect to come from the bench as a middle, using a lower centre of gravity and greater leg drive to get through the tacklers. It was the pivotal moment.
It feel strange to apportion credit to the coaches for picking the guys they did, because the options available to them are so strong, but they could have easily gone for Jeremiah Nanai, arguably a flashier choice, at the expense of solidity. Mal got this one right.
Look, Nathan Cleary isn’t really a flop. He wasn’t in the top ten Kangaroos players, but then, it also wasn’t his kind of game. Long-term readers will know that I’m a Nat Stan and he should certainly be picked for the Final in the halfback role.
But…this game did somewhat show his weakness. He is very, very rarely forced to play in adversity and even rarer is the time when his forward pack doesn’t win. On the few occasions where this has happened, his ability to turn the tide around is one of the aspects of his game on which the jury might still be out.
For what it’s worth, Ben Hunt seemed to take an active role in doing that himself when he was on, with a few textbook momentum shift plays. That might have been the plan all along, but it might also have been an executive decision by a very senior player. Hunt did also send a kick flying out of play on the full too, mind.
Cleary was limited to one good moment in the first half and a dart at the line in the second, so hardly stellar stuff. When you’re the main man, everyone scrutinises your every move. Consider this a point of scrutiny. Next week, he’ll want to be better.