S
sanzar
Guest
After watching this mornings Tri Nations game, I am really starting to see similarities between the Queensland Origin team of old (I say of Old, as NSW are just aas passionate these days) and the Kiwi's! While the error rate was high this morning and GB generally did lose the plot, I do feel that it was pretty obvious who wanted to win that game the most, and it was definately the kiwi's! The Kiwi's seemingly started this series with a patch job for a team after NRL and ESL limited their access to high profile players and generally stuffed them around, but the Kiwi's coach Brian McClennan has instilled an amount of passion, pride and general team solidarity that I don't I recall seeing in NZ rugby league. So much so that it seems incomprehensable that they won't be in this years final, and if they are, I can't imagine Stacey Jones wouldn't change his mind and come back for one last game... in fact I'll be surprised if he doesn't agree to play the rest of the series!
To add to what McClennan has already contributed, he has now come out and stuck it to the ARL and threatened them with boycott if NZ rugby league isn't treated fairly in future series:
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>
Now, I'm an Aussie, but I'm so glad this has happened! I'm sick of the NRL having all the say on NZ's internationals! It's been more detremental to international RL than almost anything else, as it's denying top quality opposition and reducing the legitmacy of the games. Good on McClennan! I hope that NZ go on and win the series and the ARL and RFL is forced to start treating NZ as an equal partner... International league has been very badly run for a long time, and this could be the shake up it needs.
To add to what McClennan has already contributed, he has now come out and stuck it to the ARL and threatened them with boycott if NZ rugby league isn't treated fairly in future series:
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Outraged Kiwis to boycott Roos
By Steve Mascord
October 30, 2005
NEW Zealand say they will tell Australia to "go to hell" next year and boycott Tests against the world champions unless they get a better deal from NRL clubs and international league bosses.
Incensed at having to cross the world to play Great Britain in the early hours of this morning in London because Australia simply wouldn't, Kiwis coach Brian McClennan told The Sunday Telegraph that if his side won the Tri-Nations, they would refuse to defend the ***le in 2006.
"We'll turn around and say 'Australia, we won't play you. Go to hell'," McClennan said. "Treat us properly!
"We're the little brother, we get slapped around. We can't even rule on our own players, whether they're injured or not. How bad's that, mate? That's just unfair. We get treated poorly."
Unafraid to step on toes in his first year in the job, McClennan said the NZRL was sick of being a distant third when it came to political muscle because it has only one full-time professional club, the Warriors. Among the Kiwis' beefs are:
The entire Tri-Nations schedule being engineered to protect the sensitivities of Australian players, who wanted days off at home before travelling to Britain.
The refusal of Australian clubs to allow the Kiwi doctor the same right to rule a player in or out of the Test side as green-and-gold medico Hugh Hazard enjoys.
Australia refusing to play under New Zealand's leading referee, Glen Black.
Winger Lesley Vainikolo undergoing shoulder surgery at the behest of his club Bradford - allegedly without anyone in the Kiwi camp being told. Also missing from the Kiwi squad because of surgery are NRL prodigies Sonny Bill Williams and Benji Marshall.
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Asked if the "poor relation" status fired the Kiwis up, McClennan replied: "Oh, yeah mate. Everyone is jumping into us about the field size (at Ericsson Stadium).
"Is there much said about the (Australian) physio holding the ball for a player to kick a goal (last week)?
"Fair go! That is against the rules."
Britain and Bradford coach Brian Noble, who has been at odds with McClennan all week over Vainikolo, agreed the Australians had too much power. He said he hoped for "more equality" next season, when the Tri-Nations is held in Australasia.
Noble favours referees from neutral countries in Tests - a system the Australian aversion to Black has brought to an end.
"The Aussies are the dominant force in the game and have been for 37 years," Noble said.
"You have to do something against them. Nobody has done anything yet."
The Sunday Telegraph[/b]
Now, I'm an Aussie, but I'm so glad this has happened! I'm sick of the NRL having all the say on NZ's internationals! It's been more detremental to international RL than almost anything else, as it's denying top quality opposition and reducing the legitmacy of the games. Good on McClennan! I hope that NZ go on and win the series and the ARL and RFL is forced to start treating NZ as an equal partner... International league has been very badly run for a long time, and this could be the shake up it needs.