48 hours: Little less conversation, lot more action please

What a pity the Kiwis' bold mission to cure the ills of the league world couldn't have lasted just one more day.

Having spent an inordinate amount of time last week advising the Australians on where to train, how to promote a test match and that a Kiwi dynasty had arrived - not to mention the numerous directives they issued on international player eligibility - Brian McClennan's side lost the plot when it counted on Friday night.

Never, in decades of following the game, can I remember so much advice from so many people spurting out of our national league side.

We are all just fortunate the match intervened on Friday night, before the lads turned their attention to mine-disaster rescues or World Cup soccer tactics.

By Saturday morning, it was the usual league test match hangover scene with Kiwi reputations strewn all over the floor amongst the Australian party hats and whistles.

Karmichael Hunt may not be able to remember the match, thanks to Frank Pritchard's shoulder hit. But Pritchard and his fellow Hunt-tormentors won't want to remember it.

An Australian victory was always the most likely outcome, especially given Andrew Johns' involvement, but certainly not in the range of 50-12.

There have been poorer Kiwis sides who have lived with Australian greats for longer than McClennan's mob managed on Friday night.

Results like this, although at more advanced stages of their careers than McClennan's, have also sent Kiwi coaches to the dole queue.

The Kiwis started promisingly and remained in touch despite their deficiencies, but by the end they were Anzac cannon fodder for Johns, Danny Buderus and company.

Courage and class have always been the hallmarks of the blue-collar Johns, whose exceptional qualities include having no weakness to his game. If your all-time team of league greats doesn't include the names Johns and Lewis in the halves, it's probably time to start again.

Johns' Friday night co-conspirator Darren Lockyer - who as a youngster sent much of his first decent pay cheque to his cash-strapped parents - is a quiet and humble character who can take slings and arrows without any pressing need to fling them back.

Both will long be remembered for their deeds on the field, whereas a few of the Kiwis will start to build unenviable reputations for their words off it if they continue down the track they carved for themselves last week.

Using an Australian coffin as a soapbox might be fun, although hardly wise, at the time. But dance on this particular sports grave and you will invariably find there is no corpse and you are left with embarrassing and hollow sounds in your ear.

Just what went on with the Kiwis during the build-up is as mysterious as the way they capitulated against Australia; how a team that bragged about how tight they were should scatter like children when the big boys turned up the heat in the final stanza.

Even the widest of widescreen TVs would have struggled to find a posse of Kiwi defenders in the late stages of the test.

There is no doubt that the persona of the New Zealand team has changed since it has been dominated by young men versed in the Australian ways.

More of a swagger, and a brashness in some. Which is not all bad.

But there was a full-moon madness to last week's build-up that did not serve the Kiwis well. And not all of it was coming from the Australian-based young guns.

McClennan, whose league life has been in the heart of Auckland, was among those firing from the lip.

Baiting a badly wounded Australia on its own territory is not best advised, and judging by Friday night's result it only served to distract the Kiwis and help build the bonds within the Australian camp.

Never mind the logic of many of the Kiwis' statements ... although it is just too tempting not to mention that Pritchard predicted a Kiwi brothers-in-arms dynasty based around himself, Sonny Bill Williams and Benji Marshall a few short breaths after announcing that his deal at Penrith was so poor that he held Super 14 and All Black ambitions.

Dynasty all right, Frank, as in the dizzy soap opera.

Oh yes. There was a radio interview where the Kiwis' manager, Peter C. Leitch, was quizzed on Marshall's availability, whereby, having given the mandatory controversy-squashing answers, the man known as the Mad Butcher launched into a relentless advert for his book-slash-pamphlet on the 2005 Tri-Nations entitled The Year the Kiwis Flew. Bizarre and out of place, although not totally unexpected.

It has proven to be another case of the Kiwis not wearing success well. The stunning Tri-Nations victory last year should have instilled inner confidence, not nonsense.

By yesterday morning, the Australian newspapers had reverted to their old ways. "Tackle costs Crocker Origin", "Lyon tipped for Origin recall", "$10m plan to fire up Souths" and "Woeful Parra have to sack Smith", announced the Sydney tabloid headlines.

The test did sneak a whisper in one story: "Bowen passes rejection test". But Kiwi impudence and impotence had largely been forgotten.

International league remains - just - on the upswing, thanks to the momentum gained from last year's Tr-Nations. But it won't stand too many more bashings a la Friday night because the Australians tend to lose interest quickly and the New Zealand public also gets a weary look in the eye.

"Turned it off," a sports-mad work colleague replied, when I enquired about his views on Friday night's debacle.

A little less talk next time, please, troops, along with a bit more action. That will go down well with the masses.

For now, 2006 stands as the year the Kiwis came crashing back to earth. The hopes many of us had for a further test revival, via a classic - though not necessarily victorious - battle in Brisbane, landed with a similar and achingly familiar thud.

Highs
Super 14 upsets galore. Classic Crusaders revival. A chance to witness the great Andrew Johns in a final test appearance.

Lows
The Kiwis - an unwell Hunt may have finished out-to-it but it was the Kiwis who were well out of the hunt.