Chris Rattue: A definitive league moment

Stephen Kearney has arrived as New Zealand's coach via a fabulous match full of drama and stoush. Photo / Getty Images

A message to the Kangaroos: "Stand aside," (as Clint Eastwood's grumpy-old-man character said with humorous punch in Gran Torino).

At the risk of inviting a jinx, let's make the grand statement. The time is up on the Kangaroos' overwhelming domination of international league.

The wonderful day we hoped for has arrived after the Kiwis and Kangaroos drew 20-all in London.

Australia will never be taken lightly and okay, they may still win more than they lose. But they can't take their dominance for granted any more because the Kiwis have confirmed their jersey is to be feared, whoever is wearing it.

Steve Kearney truly arrived as the Kiwi coach at the Twickenham Stoop, where an under-strength team sprinkled with first-grade novices stopped an Australian unit hell-bent on exacting revenge for their shock World Cup final defeat.

The Kiwi forwards, big boppers led by Fuifui Moimoi and Adam Blair, pummeled the Aussies and nullified their brilliant backs - Greg Inglis aside - on a red-letter day for Kearney and international league.

Wayne Bennett's presence in last year's victorious World Cup camp and subsequent absence from the Kiwis' disappointing performance in Brisbane in May suggested, to outsiders, that Kearney - a former Kiwi captain - was not up to the job on his own. Unfair maybe, but that was the perception.

The Kiwis' fire in London yesterday morning burned that theory to the ground. If not for Cameron Smith, surely the best dummy half to have ever played the game, Aussie would have been toast.

This was a fabulous match, full of drama and stoush, the way international league should be played.

It will be eternally frustrating to the humble Kearney, the Melbourne assistant coach, that he did not walk away from the Four Nations opener with the victory his team richly deserved. But he has established his test coaching credentials.

The Brian McClennan-Kiwis era delivered plenty - along with some disappointment - up until 2006, but Kearney has taken the success further still.

What a marvellous turnaround for the Kiwis after the humiliation and despair of the awful 2007 interlude, when they collapsed in disgrace at Wellington under Gary Kemble and bumbled around Britain like tourists more interested in chasing the dessert trolley than making a meal of an average Lions side.

They are the world champions, and yesterday morning's result in London says deservedly so.

The Kiwis are shaping up to Australia the way Queensland do to New South Wales in the State of Origin. They are building a David versus Goliath mentality, using limited resources to their advantage and establishing traditions of performance that can be reproduced again and again.

Kearney is stoking the fires, filling his side with damaging footballers who rise to the occasion and utilise New Zealand's natural advantages.

Stirring success has been followed by inevitable failure against Australia in the past, but the Kiwis have turned a corner instead of peering around it before retreating down a sadly familiar road.

With inspiring leaders such as Benji Marshall, Adam Blair, Steve Matai and Jeremy Smith, Kearney's Kiwis are forming a tight unit that will encourage newcomers with the right attitude to join the party. They can look Australia in the eye with confidence every time.

The Kiwis started with a rousing haka yesterday morning and piled into their work like men possessed.

Among the most influential was the young Manly forward, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, who played like a cross between Ruben Wiki and a runaway windmill.

Waerea-Hargreaves, with only a handful of first-grade appearances, gave a lesson to every young Kiwi who follows: test football is not a place to fear and opposing reputations are there to be smashed while establishing your own .

It was the players absent who told so much about what happened yesterday - Kearney's Kiwis were missing serious muscle and experience, including Roy Asotasi, Simon Mannering, Jeremy Smith and Greg Eastwood. You can throw in the name of Sonny Bill Williams as well. Watching events unfold in London brought home the tragedy of Williams' ridiculous, shameful move to rugby union.

Williams should be the man turning this Kiwi side into an unstoppable monster, but instead he is scratching around in the union undergrowth, thanks to the influence of selfish flesh traders like Tana Umaga and Williams' loony management, the latter operating like the leeches who have long sucked helpless boxers dry.

Dig deep into Williams' heart right now and you may find that this product from the core of Auckland league is starting to realise what he has thrown away at the advice of men who cared not a jot for the place he should have come to hold in league history.

While Sonny Bill may parlez vous his career away, the magnificent Marshall's cajoling for the Kiwi cause is at the heart of this revival. Marshall has taken the place of the much-respected Nigel Vagana, the elder statesman during Brian McClennan's coaching tenure.

From the moment it emerged that Marshall was trying to persuade Karmichael Hunt to take up the Kiwi cause, it was evident that Marshall had more than just extreme talent flowing through his veins.

He cared about the cause, and his attitude is infectious.

The Kiwis might have been given a wee leg up yesterday, although they didn't need it.

Australian coach Tim Sheens played an odd backrow combination - Trent Waterhouse, Ryan Hoffman and Anthony Watmough are fine club players but as a unit they lack a certain grunt, and Sheens is unlikely to leave the brutish Paul Gallen with a reduced role.

The Australians are also trying to squish a square peg into a round hole using Jarryd Hayne on the wing. You suspect that Sheens will give Hayne, Australian league's golden boy, his chance at fullback where he operates like a large, running five-eighth and can pick the moments to strike.

This might mean resting the brilliant Billy Slater, but Hayne's true claims are unlikely to be ignored.

There are players made for test football, and one of them is Kiwi league's favourite grandson, Nathan Fien.

Fien can look decidedly average in the NRL as a playmaker or dummy half.

He left the Warriors mid-season under unusual circumstances, and I understand the inner circle wasn't impressed with his version of comradeship around a club struggling through a crisis.

Yet this is at odds with what you see from Fien as a Kiwi and his combative work in the test arena.

In contrast, the mercurial NRL superstar Hayne doesn't perform like the test player everyone knows he could be while stationed on the wing.

Whatever combination Sheens does come up with, the Kiwis will be ready and waiting should they get a rematch in the final.

It's a wonderful prospect, and the fingers-crossed hope now is that the Kiwis don't slip up in a fortnight's time against England, who were shoddy and ponderous against France.

France led England at halftime, which was almost as big a shock as finding out that France are coached by the former British halfback Bobby Goulding, who was as crazy as a cut snake in his playing days.

The danger man to Kearney's troops is English captain Jamie Peacock, a class act as a prop and a tough competitor who rises to the occasion against the Kiwis.

Yesterday's game left me with two fervent wishes. The first is that a flashing light of common sense can strike Sonny-Bill Williams, so he makes the apologies due and returns to league with his head screwed on and becomes a committed part of what is a rising Kiwi movement.

The second is that we get to see more tests like this in New Zealand.

The economics are tricky and the crowds have not always responded here as they might, but it is a concept worth promoting and pursuing. The wild trench warfare of the best test league is a wondrous thing to attend.