New Zealand coach Stephen Kearney is convinced Australia are back to their best as they hunt vengeance for their opening loss to the Kiwis three weeks ago in Saturday’s Four Nations rugby league final in Wellington.
Kearney’s Kiwis outmuscled the Kangaroos in the middle of the park in the 30-12 boilover in Brisbane, backing that up with a 14-12 win over Samoa and last week’s 16-14 defeat of England.
But Kearney says the Australians are a different team, noticeable in their 16-12 win against England and a 44-18 dismantling of Samoa.
“We’ve watched the Australians in terms of their improvement over the last couple of weeks – we know what we’re in for,” he said.
“Essentially it’ll come down to 17 guys who take the field for us, making sure they get their jobs done really well and execute what we’ve been working on in training all week.”
Losing hooker Thomas Leuluai to injury has been a blow, Kearney concedes, but he describes Issac Luke is a “fairly handy replacement” and the way Lewis Brown stepped up off the bench has been a real positive.
Kearney says the seamless transition has been helped by the way Shaun Kenny-Dowall and Kieran Foran have shouldered more responsibility.
“We’ve all put our hands up in terms of play-making and taking on a bit more.”
Captain Cameron Smith says Australia’s shortcomings from their first-up defeat to New Zealand have been addressed, and he’s confident they’ve learned from the loss.
“As soon as we finished that match, we addressed our defence,” he said.
The Kangaroos were caught napping out wide as well as through the middle, but Smith has no fears of a repeat at Westpac Stadium on Saturday.
He says the improvement was apparent in their 16-12 win over England 13 days ago, and the team lifted again with a 44-18 win over Samoa in Wollongong last Sunday.
“Those young guys out on our edges have done a great job in the last two games we played.
“Our defence as a team overall has been a lot stronger, and the attitude’s been better,” he said.
“But there are areas apart from our defence that we needed to address after that first game, and I think we’ve done that.”
