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Dylan Edwards showed why he is the No.1 fullback in rugby league Australia advancing to the Pacific Championships final on the back of his brilliance and their brickwall defence.
After shutting out Tonga 18-0, the Kangaroos absorbed a mountain of punishment from New Zealand to grind their way to a 22-10 triumph with Edwards’ class from the back giving Mal Meninga’s side the edge in an intense contest from start to finish.
It was the call he had to make but Meninga still went out on a limb somewhat when he made the bold call to dump James Tedesco as captain for the tournament to hand Edwards the No.1 jersey but the Penrith premiership winner is the most reliable and effective star in the NRL and he’s only enhanced that at Test level.
Both teams were missing several stars but there was nothing second rate about this clash.
International rugby league has never been stronger after the recent rise of Tonga and Samoa but Australia’s traditional rivals of New Zealand and England need to also play their part.
Starting a new era with Stacey Jones taking over as coach from Michael Maguire following last year’s 30-0 win over the Aussies to claim the Pacific crown, New Zealand were without several stars but proved they have plenty of depth with young fullback Keano Kinu the standout performer among their five debutants.
Angus Crichton added his name to the lowlights reel of players who have binge certain a try by fumbling a put down without any contact from a defender.
The Roosters forward strolled over in the sixth minute but was too casual with his one-handed effort and the Bunker ruled he’d lost control, much to the delight of the sell-out crowd.
Crichton famously had the middle finger on his left hand amputated to expedite his return from injury early in his career but that was no excuse because he made this blunder with his right hand.
Lindsay Collins made no such mistake in the 16th minute when he broke through the line 30 metres out with Kini and a fellow Kiwi featherweight in hooker Phoenix Crossland proving no match for the rampaging Queenslander.
The modern trend is to bring the fullback up to the first line when you are defending your red zone but Kini’s defensive frailties were exposed after the young Titan was targeted by Collins.
Kini is however an elite attacking threat and he unveiled lightning quick hands to capitalise on an Isaiah Papali’i offload for Jamayne Isaako to equalise.
The Kiwis were on the ascendancy but Tom Trbojevic put the visitors ahead five minutes from half-time when he stood up opposing centre Matt Timoko to set up Zac Lomax in the corner.
Crichton again fumbled the ball in the in-goal area early in the second half with the Kiwis claiming a try this time around due to his clumsy handling.
Luckily for the Kangaroos, Edwards saved the day by grounding the ball in the nick of time amid a sequence of six straight Kiwi sets on their goal line.
The match was decided during that stretch when the Australian defence repelled repeated Kiwi raids and after finally making their way down the other end of the field, Lomax backed up Harry Grant for his second try and a 16-6 lead on the hour mark.
Dylan Edwards. (Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)
“Over the course of the game, the Kiwis had more ball and the better attacking possession but there was a 15-minute period in that second half where the Australian defence kept repelling the attack of New Zealand and that basically won them the game,” Fox League expert Cooper Cronk said.
Will Warbrick’s shady past as an Aussie Rules representative in New Zealand is reaching Billy Slater trackwork jockey status but he claimed a nice mark off a Johnson high kick before shaking off Lomax to cut the deficit to six with 15 minutes left.
Edwards again reversed the Kiwi momentum at the perfect time, making a long-range break in the 73rd minute to send Mitchell Moses over for the match-winner.
Meninga was in awe of his team’s tackling prowess in the face of New Zealand’s dominance with possession.
The Kiwis enjoyed 53% of the ball and only made five errors for the match but they couldn’t penetrate the Kangaroos’ line apart from a try in each half. A lesser side would have had 30 put on them.
“They had most of the territory for most of the game,” Meninga said.
“I felt our goal-line defence, inside our 20, was exceptional again. In the start of the second half there, we had to defend about four sets in the first 10 minutes so I’m really pleased with the defensive effort and we scored a few more points than last week as well.
“There’s still improvement in us. But that’s a good thing. We’ve got to play a bit smarter with the footy. Our control of it was a lot better this week than it was last week, definitely. We got out of our end better.”
Australia have avoided any chance of being relegated from the top tier with their win while the Kiwis will need to beat Tonga to dodge a playoff with the winner of the Pacific Bowl to be part of next year’s tournament.
“The very nature of the tournament,” Meninga added, “if we happen to lose tonight, we’re under pressure as a team and then we have to rely on the Kiwis to lose next week. It’s was always pressure under these sort of relegation promotion type systems.
“New Zealand came with a really simple plan. I thought they executed really well. But I thought we handled it really well too.”
There were concerns about New Zealand when they had to scratch around to come up with a squad for the Pacific Championships.
The cumulative effect of injuries and dual eligibility players pledging their allegiances to other Pacific nations meant Jones had to pick a team with five debutants and Shaun Johnson coaxed back from the retirement lounge.
But the new breed of Kiwis rose to the challenge.
“There’s a foundation there that we can work from,” Jones said.
“Obviously disappointed in the result but really proud too. Proud of the guys that made their debuts, proud of the effort that was put in.
“We’ll be much better for the run. We had guys who hadn’t played for seven weeks.”
Kini was outstanding at the back apart from one defensive mishap which led to Collins drawing first blood.
He was Gold Coast’s player of the year, which can be the equivalent of being the best actor in Full House or its equally excretable Fuller House, but the 20-year-old showed he is ready to kick on from his breakout season to become one of the best fullbacks in the game in the next few years.
He tallied a game-high 220 running metres from his 23 runs, breaking five tackles and linking well with the makeshift halves duo of Johnson and Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad.
Fellow newbies Crossland, Naufahu Whyte, Warbrick and Jordan Riki also showed they are very much capable of being more than just fill-ins for the Test arena.
Whyte, who was elevated to the starting side in a late pre-game switch, is only 22 and is now a permanent part of the Roosters pack, playing 23 matches in 2024 after a combined 11 in the previous two seasons. After his impressive rumble with the Kangaroos first up, he will quickly become a regular for NZ as well.
He made 147 running metres in just 42 minutes of game time, the highest metre-eaterage from a Kiwi forward and only just shaded by Kangaroos prop Patrick Carrigan’s 158 in 57 minutes.
Meninga raised a few eyebrows, none as big as his own, when he retained the same 17 players that toppled Tonga 18-0 in their Pacific Championships opener.
In tournament play it is more common for the Kangaroos to rotate the squad around but after last year’s loss, Meninga has prioritised putting his best team on the park ahead of trying out combinations.
Panthers prop Lindsay Smith, Cowboys hooker Reece Robson and Knights centre Bradman Best are uncapped members of the squad who will probably have to wait until 2025 to wear the green and gold for the first time unless injuries cause a shake-up before the November 10 final.
And that will make it even more satisfying when they eventually do earn their first Test jersey.
The other noteworthy aspect to Meninga’s pick and stick policy is that the team will have as much cohesion as you can get in such a short timeframe as this month-long tournament for the final at CommBank Stadium.