Australia vs New Zealand Centenary Test (Rugby League) - Sport Report

The by-line for the Rugby League Centenary Test should probably have been: “Celebrate 100 years of international rugby league being a colossal waste of time.”

Harsh? Of course it is, but that doesn’t change the fact that last night’s game was an absolute waste of time.  The pre-match show celebrating the Team of the Century (complete with the surviving members travelling around the grounds and waving to the fans) was a nice touch, and the fans seemed to be pretty enthusiastic about seeing the various legends of the game; the choice of the SCG as the location, and the classic jerseys was also a nice touch, and gave a nicely historic feeling to the match which made it feel far more special than your average Test match.

New Zealand kickoff the Centenary Test

But then kickoff came around, and everything just went to crap; Australia are simply too dominant, and have far too much depth in the NRL competition to be in any danger from the much more limited New Zealanders (or Great Britain for that matter), except perhaps for the occasional fluke.

Australia scored the first try of the match in the first couple of minutes, courtesy of a freakishly talented Greg Inglis, who caught the ball in midair over the dead ball line before throwing it back to Gasnier (shudder) to score; simply a brilliant effort, and one that will be remembered for a very long time. 

At 22 minutes into the first half, Australia had scored as many points as minutes had passed (although Cameron Smith’s try was an obvious double movement, and shouldn’t have been awarded), and New Zealand had accomplished nothing more than spilling the ball repeatedly and having defence softer than Paul Gallen’s guts.

New Zealand attack the line in one of their few examples of decent attacking football

New Zealand looked a little more together in the second half and showed some positive signs in both attacks and defence, but Australia were never remotely under threat; in fact, the Kangaroos never felt like they took the game above second gear, and yet still managed to blow the Kiwis off the paddock.

If they had really turned it up, the score could have been much, much more embarrassing for New Zealand.

Honestly, I could go into more play-by-play details of the game, but there is little point; it was an uninteresting game which was a foregone conclusion before they even kicked off.  Still, there were some plus sides to the game; it was nice to see the various debutants for Australia have good games (my boy Billy Slater was rock-solid in defence, but had little chance in attack due to how easily the Australian forwards were rolling over the Kiwis), and some of the New Zealanders on debut also showed some positive signs.

New Zealand attack and fumble, as per usual

New Zealand, however, just had no real attack and no discipline; their halves combination had no flair or technique, and looked particularly poor when facing the immense ball-playing skills of Jonathan Thurston, Greg Bird, and Cameron Smith.  The NZ forwards, once their main strength due to their sheer size and intimidation factor, were completely outgunned by an Australian pack that barely broke a sweat in attack or defence.

At this rate the upcoming Rugby League World Cup is set to be a complete joke; as it is there are only three countries in the world that are actually even slightly competitive, and Australia is so far ahead of GB or NZ that the Kangaroos could show up at half time and still win the game. 

While Australian dominance might please the fans in the short term, it does nothing whatsoever for the game heading into the future.  I don’t really have an answer to this problem, but something has to be done to turn international football into an actual competition; at this rate the game will be lucky to see out another hundred years internationally, and that would be an absolute shame.

My kingdom for some competition.

   

- Tim Sweeney 

   

Gallery of some shots of the game, taken with my LG KU990 phone

Close up of the member's area

My first use of the panorama function; stuffed up the 3rd shot, but still fairly impressive

The crowd in front of me

Lined up for the anthems

the scoreboard - now with 53% more smoke

A shot of the crowd including the member's stand

The players come out onto the field

The New Zealand Line - less intimidating that it looks

The Australians chill out behind the try line